IT-380 explores the basic concepts in cybersecurity and information assurance. Topics include security policies, models, and mechanisms for secrecy, integrity, and availability of communications and information, approaches to prevent, detect and recover from the loss of information, cryptography and its applications, vulnerability scanning, and the functions of a chief security officer, along with security in computer networks and distributed systems. The course requires IT-201 (University College track) or IT-340 (College of Online and Continuing Education track) as a prerequisite.
The CIA triad as the course's organizing framework
The course's coverage of secrecy, integrity, and availability mechanisms reflects the classic cybersecurity CIA triad, giving students a genuine organizing framework for understanding what security mechanisms are actually trying to protect and why.
The chief security officer role as a genuine career throughline
IT-380 explicitly covers the functions of a chief security officer, connecting the course's technical security content to the genuine organizational leadership role students may eventually pursue in their careers.
Key topics in IT380
- Security policies and models
- Secrecy, integrity, and availability mechanisms
- Cryptography and its applications
- Vulnerability scanning
- The chief security officer role
- Security in networks and distributed systems
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Worked example: the CIA triad organizing security priorities
- Unstructured security approach: Addressing security concerns ad hoc without a clear organizing framework
- IT-380's approach: Organizing security mechanisms around genuinely protecting secrecy, integrity, and availability of information
- Lesson: IT-380 teaches that this CIA-triad framework gives cybersecurity professionals a clear, genuine way to evaluate whether a given security mechanism actually addresses a real protection goal
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Frequently asked questions
Every specific security mechanism — encryption, access controls, backup systems — ultimately exists to protect one or more of these three core properties: keeping information secret from unauthorized parties, ensuring it isn't improperly altered, and keeping it available when legitimately needed. IT-380 organizes its content around this CIA-triad framework because it gives students a genuine, reusable lens for evaluating any security mechanism's actual purpose, rather than memorizing an unstructured list of unconnected security techniques.
Cybersecurity professionals often advance into organizational leadership roles where they must translate technical security knowledge into policy decisions, resource allocation, and organizational risk management — responsibilities distinct from the hands-on technical work covered elsewhere in the course. IT-380 includes the chief security officer's functions because it connects the course's technical foundation to this realistic career trajectory, preparing students to understand cybersecurity from both a technical and organizational-leadership perspective.