Cyber Criminology

One of the most rewarding – and in-demand – careers of the future

Cyber crime can be broadly defined as any criminal activity that involves the use of information technology. These crimes include illegally accessing information, intercepting data, damaging or deleting data, interfering with the functioning of a computer system, identity theft, etc. Information-related crime and computer/network security issues are already major concerns. These issues affect all levels of business, government, and academia and have grown in importance as most organizations link their networked computer environments to the Internet. A Cyber Criminology student will learn both how to use computers to facilitate the study of crime and will study how crimes are accomplished through the use of computers.

Admissions Requirements

Students pursuing the MS in Cyber Criminology (MS CC) degree will be admitted to and graduate from the Computer Science Department. Thus, the minimal admissions requirements are (1) an undergraduate GPA of no less than 3.0 and (2) a score of 1000 or greater on the combined verbal and quantitative portions of the GRE.

Degree Requirements

The initial track for the MS CC degree will be coursework only. The general degree requirements will include 4 graduate criminology courses and 7 graduate computer science (CS) courses related to information assurance and computer security for a total of 33 hours. The 6 required CS courses will fulfill an NSA approved certificate program, which will facilitate graduates from the program with getting employment with a federal government agency or a government contractor after they graduate.

In addition, MS CC students will have to complete certain undergraduate prerequisites, shown below, before graduating, and will likely have to complete a subset of these courses before being admitted to the MS CC degree program. Note that CIS 4385 is required for the FSU BS in Cyber Criminology and the other four courses are required for the FSU BS in Computer Science and BA in Computer Science degrees.

Undergraduate Prerequisites for the MS CC Degree Program

  • CDA 3101: Computer Organization II (3)
  • CIS 4385: Cybercrime Detection and Forensics (3)
  • COP 4530: Data Structures, Algorithms, and Generic Programming (3)
  • COP 4610: Operating Systems and Concurrent Programming (3)
  • COP 4710: Theory and Structure of Databases (3)

The graduation requirements include completing all of the undergraduate prerequisites, completing 4 graduate criminology courses, and completing 7 graduate computer science courses. The graduate courses for the MS CC degree are listed below:

Criminology Courses from Which MS CC Students are Required to Take at Least Three:

  • CCJ 5016: Crimes of the Powerful (3)
  • CCJ 5285: Survey of Criminal Justice Theory and Research (3)
  • CCJ 5606: Survey of Criminological Theories (3)
  • CCJ 5607: History of Criminological Thought (3)
  • CCJ 5636: Comparative Criminology and Criminal Justice (3)

Computer Science Courses Required for MS CC Students:

  • CIS 5370: Computer Security (3)
  • CNT 5412: Network Security, Active and Passive Defenses (3)
  • CNT 5505: Data and Computer Communications (3)
  • CNT 5605: Computer and Network Administration (3)
  • COP 5611: Advanced Operating Systems (3)
  • COP 5725: Database Systems (3)

One of the required four Criminology courses can be a graduate criminology elective and one of the seven required Computer Science courses can be a graduate computer science elective. The four criminology courses can be taken in any order as none of these courses are prerequisites for any of the other courses. However, the six required graduate computer science courses each have undergraduate prerequisites that must be completed before the student will be allowed to take these courses.