Program Overview

The Cybersecurity Master of Science and Technology is a two-year program, entirely taught in English and designed for highly qualified and internationally oriented students. The Program offers high-level scientific classes taught by faculty from École Polytechnique and partner companies.

This Master of Science and Technology in Cybersecurity allows students to acquire:

  • A high-level understanding of the broad field of cybersecurity
  • Concrete operational skills within each of the three core activities (creation of secure systems, ensuring ongoing security, handling when system security is compromised), both for defensive and offensive cybersecurity.
  • An understanding of the roles that security professionals have, within each of these activities
Picto-PROGRAM-Diplome
Master's Degree
Picto-PROGRAM-Multidisciplinary
Industry-Oriented
Picto-PROGRAM-Start
September 2024
Picto-PROGRAM-duree
2 Years
Picto-PROGRAM-langues
Taught in English
Picto-PROGRAM-Location
In France
Picto-PROGRAM-Credits
140 ECTS
Picto-PROGRAM-carte bleue
€14,900 Per Year

About Cybersecurity

Defensive cybersecurity can be thought of as three distinct, but related, core activities, related to protecting a system against negative effects from a cyberattack:

1. Creating secure systems, ensuring that systems are as robust and secure as possible at the time of deployment and that the impact of a successful attack is minimised. This includes mastering techniques, tools and processes for:

  • Methodologies for Secure-by-Design, DevSecOps, formal methods for software security
  • Modern software architectures (hybrid cloud, multi-cloud)
  • Network and systems compartmentalisation
  • Minimising exploitability of exfiltrated data (privacy-preservation, encryption, …)
  • Understanding and implementing data protection regulations

2. Ensuring the continuous security of systems used : ensuring that the system remain secure even when facing an evolving context. This involves mastering :

  • Systems Audit - ISO27K1
  • Risk Management, ISO27K5, EBIOS-RM
  • Penetration Testing
  • Threat Intelligence and vulnerability management

3. Handling when system security is compromised or at risk. Understanding the risks and mastering the skills for:

  • Incident response
  • Digital forensics, malware analysis
  • Crisis management, crisis leadership

Each of these three activities contains three equally important pillars:

  • The Technical tools and architectures that can be deployed, to counter the effects of cyberattacks
  • The Governance which is, the comprehensive strategy of when, how and why these tools and architectures are used in a way that fits into the organisational processes and minimises the consequences (interruption of activities, losses, …) of cyberattacks.
  • The People who are part of the deployment of these techniques, architectures, and strategies

Offensive Cybersecurity broadly consists of looking at a system from an attacker's perspective and attempting to find ways to compromise it: by identifying vulnerabilities present, and by proactively exploiting these to compromise systems while remaining undetected.

As such, one legal application of Offensive Cybersecurity is as part of the “Ensuring ongoing security of deployed systems” activity of Defensive Cybersecurity - penetration testing being the evident example hereof.

While offensive and defensive cybersecurity share a common set of skill requirements (threat analysis, vulnerability management, system and network architectures, telemetry and monitoring, penetration testing…), offensive cybersecurity place an additional emphasis on mastering the tools, frameworks and techniques for developing exploits as well as the use of social engineering.

Program Structure

This two-year Master's degree, fully taught in English, is designed to equip you with the skills required for the business world.

A Master of Science and Technology at Ecole Polytechnique is an elite, 2 year, full-time, study programme. Each year consists of 70 ECTS credits, with a minimum of 25 ECTS in Science, Technology and Engineering Science, a minimum of 6 ECTS in Management, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, and 10 ECTS in Culture, Languages and Sports. Each year also contains an internship of minimum 20 ECTS.

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Cybersecurity Program Focus

Admissions Criteria

The ideal Bachelor's degree for candidates applying to our MSc&T Cybersecurity program is in Computer Science.

Candidates holding a Bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics and Electrical/Electronics Engineering are also eligible.

Students with a Bachelor's degree in Computational Chemistry/Biology or  Bioinformatician will be considered on a case-by-case basis for admission.
 

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MSc&T drahi ecole polytechnique

Career Prospects

Students of the Cybersecurity Master's Program will learn how to address different issues in cybersecurity, whether directly or by creating adapted software. After graduating, they have access to a wide range of high-level jobs such as:

  • Penetration tester
  • Cybersecurity analyst
  • Cybersecurity auditor
  • RSSI (Responsable de Securite des Systèmes Informatique) / Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
  • SecOps Architect
  • Consultant Cybersecurity
  • Digital forensic investigator / examiner
  • Incident Responder
  • Ethical Hacker
  • Security Architect

Tuition Fees

Tuition fees are €14,900 per academic year.

FINANCIAL AID
The Housing Office helps students apply for the French National Housing Benefit "CAF". Students usually receive financial aid of €150-200 per month.
All our students receive the ISIC card (International Student Identity Card) automatically and free of charge. This gives them access to preferential and discounted rates for over 150,000 products, services and experiences, relevant to all aspects of student life.
Additional scholarship opportunities can be found on the CampusFrance website (e.g. French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development for international students). Please note that French "CROUS" scholarships are not compatible with this degree.