Unit Synopsis
Cybersecurity professionals are expected to design, analyse and validate computer systems and networks to maintain operational continuity in the face of attacks. In this unit, you will learn about common types of attacks and the tools and techniques used to prevent, detect and respond to them. You will develop skills in virtualisation and cloud services to address cybersecurity challenges. Additionally, you will gain experience with specialised cybersecurity tools for detecting vulnerabilities, monitoring network traffic and responding to attacks.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 1 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Pre-Requisite: COIT11238 Networked Infrastructure Foundations. Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Written Assessment | 30% |
| 2. Portfolio | 50% |
| 3. Presentation | 20% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 1 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 70.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 19.23% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: Teaching Team Reflections
Some students have computers which have difficulty running the required virtual machines.
Transition from on-premise to cloud hosed virtual machines.
A Learning and Teaching initiative is currently underway to provide students with access to cloud-hosted virtual machines.
Source: Student Evaluations
Learning materials need to be improved.
Improve the learning materials, for example, by converting the practical exercises into self guided activities.
Interactive H5P practices have been integrated into this unit.
Source: Teaching Team Reflections
Some students have computers that have difficulty running the required virtual machines.
Provide a cloud-hosted alternative for running virtual machines.
In Progress
Source: Teaching Team Reflections and Student Evaluations
The assessment tasks are individual and overly prescriptive. Unfortunately, the assessment has lost the original 'detective hunt' experience.
Revise the recent assessment tasks to incorporate group work and exploratory learning.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Explain cybersecurity challenges and the technologies available to address those challenges
- Apply cybersecurity tools to identify vulnerabilities and protect computer systems
- Apply cloud services tools to automate common IT processes and task.
The Australian Computer Society (ACS) recognises the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). SFIA is adopted by organisations, governments and individuals in many countries and provides a widely used and consistent definition of ICT skills. SFIA is increasingly being used when developing job descriptions and role profiles. ACS members can use the tool MySFIA to build a skills profile.
This unit contributes to the following workplace skills as defined by SFIA 9 (the SFIA code is included)
- Information security (SCTY)
- Risk management (BURM)
- Identity and access management (IAMT)
- Security administration (SCAD)
- Vulnerability assessment (VUAS)
- Penetration testing (PENT)
The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Framework defines knowledge, skills and tasks needed to perform various cybersecurity roles. Developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the NICE Framework is used by organisations to plan their workforce, including recruiting into cybersecurity positions.
This unit helps prepare you for roles such as Systems Security Analyst, Network Operations Specialist and Systems Administrator, contributing to the following knowledge and skills:
- K0003 Knowledge of laws, regulations, policies, and ethics as they relate to cybersecurity and privacy.
- K0004 Knowledge of cybersecurity and privacy principles.
- K0005 Knowledge of cyber threats and vulnerabilities.
- K0006 Knowledge of specific operational impacts of cybersecurity lapses.
- K0040 Knowledge of vulnerability information dissemination sources (e.g., alerts, advisories, errata, and bulletins).
- K0044 Knowledge of cybersecurity and privacy principles and organisational requirements (relevant to confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, and non-repudiation).
- K0071 Knowledge of remote access technology concepts.
- K0075 Knowledge of security system design tools, methods, and techniques.
- K0130 Knowledge of virtualisation technologies and virtual machine development and maintenance.
- K0135 Knowledge of web filtering technologies.
- K0160 Knowledge of the common attack vectors on the network layer.
- K0274 Knowledge of transmission records (e.g., Bluetooth, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Infrared Networking (IR), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi). paging, cellular, satellite dishes, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)), and jamming techniques that enable transmission of undesirable information, or prevent installed systems from operating correctly.
- K0290 Knowledge of systems security testing and evaluation methods.
- K0297 Knowledge of countermeasure design for identified security risks.
- K0318 Knowledge of operating system command-line tools.
- K0339 Knowledge of how to use network analysis tools to identify vulnerabilities.
- S0031 Skill in developing and applying security system access controls.
- S0060 Skill in writing code in a currently supported programming language (e.g., Java, C++).
- S0073 Skill in using virtual machines. (e.g., Microsoft Hyper-V, VMWare vSphere, Citrix XenDesktop/Server, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, etc.).
- S0154 Skill in installing system and component upgrades. (i.e., servers, appliances, network devices).
- S0167 Skill in recognising vulnerabilities in security systems. (e.g., vulnerability and compliance scanning).
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | • | |
| 2 - Portfolio | • | • | |
| 3 - Presentation | • | • | |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | ||
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • |
| 5 - Team Work | • | ||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | • | • |
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | • | • |
| 10 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | • | ||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |