Auburn University’s Harbert College of Business today announced a new graduate certificate in cybersecurity management designed to provide business professionals with the skills they need to manage operational exposure in today’s high-risk threat environment.

The new program builds upon Auburn’s national leadership in cybersecurity policy and engineering research, including extensive work being conducted at the Auburn Cyber Research Center, McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security and its Washington, D.C.-based Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.

Rather than focus on the technical aspects of threat identification, the new graduate certificate in cybersecurity management enables IT professionals and other business managers to successfully evaluate security measures, assess organizational threat exposure and develop effective contingency plans for mitigating risk across all business operations.

The graduate certificate in cybersecurity management from the Harbert College of Business is available online and on campus, and business professionals may pursue this graduate certificate without being enrolled in a broader master’s degree program. The curriculum has been designed to provide deep immersion into the knowledge required to prepare for three critical professional certification exams: the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) exam, the Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC) exam and the Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam.

Certificate credits earned through the graduate certificate in cybersecurity management could later be applied to graduate business degrees at Auburn or other universities. Additionally, Auburn’s full-time, online and Executive MBA students, as well as master’s degree students in information systems, can pursue both a concentration and a certificate in cybersecurity management.

Frank J. Cilluffo, director of Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security, applauded the new graduate certificate and pointed to the increased threat all businesses face in emphasizing why cybersecurity is an enterprise-wide endeavor.

“A company’s IT/cyber team should not be in the fight alone,” said Cilluffo. “Adopting good practices and striving to comply with pertinent regulations is important, but it is crucial to consistently assess the potential risks and adjust those policies and practices accordingly. Genuine security will never be achieved by a ‘check-the-box’ mentality, which loses sight of this bigger picture, and wrongly assumes that fulfillment of a checklist alone will protect you.”

Cilluffo noted that one important concern for businesses today is the prevalence of ransomware attacks, which were up 195 percent in the first quarter of 2019 as compared to the fourth quarter of 2018. Data breaches are another ongoing concern for all businesses, with the 2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study citing the average cost for a data breach in the United States at $7.9 million, with costs rising into the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in the most serious of cases.

For more information and directions for applying for the graduate certificate in cybersecurity management, visit here or contact Graduate Programs Officer Dianne Hall at gradcor@auburn.edu.

Harbert College of Business

Auburn University's Harbert College of Business provides its students with an innovative-yet-practical education focused on career readiness. The college's degree programs in accountancy, business analytics and supply chain management lead the nation. Its research centers in supply chain management and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology guide the Fortune 100. Harbert's pioneering online education programs offer value and flexibility. The college's nationally recognized faculty produce research that informs and responds to today's business trends. Learn more at the Harbert College of Business website.