Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Certificate

Orientation: Pittsburgh, PA
January 14-16, 2020

Virtual Classes: 4:00 - 9:00pm EST
(Note: all virtual class dates are Thursdays)
February 6, 13, 20
March 5

Group Project Work Session: Pittsburgh, PA
March 17-19, 2020

Virtual Classes: 4:00 - 9:00pm EST
(Note: all virtual class dates are Thursdays)
March 26
April 9, 16, 23
May 7, 14, 21

Practicum: Pittsburgh, PA
Cohort A: June 16-18, 2020

Cohort B: June 23-25, 2020

Orientation: Pittsburgh, PA
September 15-17, 2020

Virtual Classes: 4:00 - 9:00pm EST
(Note: all virtual class dates are Thursdays)
October 1, 8, 15 (2020)
November 5, 12 (2020)

Group Project Work Session: Pittsburgh, PA
November 17-19, 2020

Virtual Classes: 4:00 - 9:00pm EST
(Note: all virtual class dates are Thursdays)
December 3, 10, 17 (2020)
January 7, 14, 21 (2021)

Practicum: Pittsburgh, PA
Cohort A: February 9-11, 2021

Cohort B: February 16-18, 2021

Orientation, group project work sessions, and practicum sessions are held at our main campus in Pittsburgh:

Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University
4800 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Please note: The CISO Certificate Program involves three mandatory on-campus sessions in Pittsburgh.

• $18,750 for the entire program
• $15,000 discounted rate for Carnegie Mellon alumni—including CIO, CRO, and Digital LEEP programs—U.S. government employees, veterans, and employees of non-profit organizations
• Fee includes all program materials and daily continental breakfast, lunch, and refreshments during on-campus sessions.
• Optional credit card installment payment plan is available

Please note: Due to the non-credit bearing nature of the CISO Certificate Program, students are unable to apply for tuition assistance, scholarship, or VA benefits.

Cancellation/Refund Policy

A non-refundable, non-transferable deposit of 1/6 of the total program cost is required to reserve a seat in the program.

Should a student withdraw from the program after the deposit has been paid but prior to the program start date, students may have 5/6 of the program costs either refunded to them or transferred to the following cohort of the program.

After the program start date, no refunds will be issued. However, under extenuating circumstances and with program director approval, students may petition to postpone their attendance to a future cohort and have 5/6 of the program costs applied accordingly.

Formal deadline for Cohort 15 is June 15, 2020. Please submit your application as soon as possible for consideration.

If space remains in the cohort after the deadline, we will continue to accept applications on a first-come, first-served basis.

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Instructor: Alan Levine

This module is focused on discussing the CISO roles and responsibilities; how the CISO integrates effectively in organizational governance and operations; and leadership and management practices that enhance the ability of today’s CISO to succeed in any organization. This module will help to set the stage for the overall CISO certificate program and the modules that follow.

Instructor: Dr. Earl Crane

This module will provide an overview of cyber risk management concepts and techniques, and then provide a tangible deep-dive into real-world examples and scenarios. Students will be asked to bring their real-world expertise and risk management challenges to share with their colleagues. Discussions will include an overview of cyber risk management frameworks, relevant regulations, and available tools. We will cover the three lines of defense, the latest thinking in risk-based assessments, and how to represent cyber risk as a decision-making framework for business unit leaders, executives, and your board.

Instructor: Jack Jones

This module will assist students, via the FAIR methodology, to accurately assess IT and cybersecurity loss exposure, to learn how to identify the significance of control weaknesses, determine how to optimize security budgets and priorities, and understand how to support governance and compliance requirements.

Instructor: Matt Butkovic

This module is focused on an increasingly common challenge; how to ensure the security and resilience of your organization’s critical services when many of the assets – technology, people, facilities, and information – required to deliver the service are provided by outside entities. This module is also intended to provide an overview of the concept of resilience, operational resilience, resilience management, and related subjects and challenges.

Instructor: Randy Trzeciak

Insider threats are influenced by a combination of technical, behavioral, and organizational issues and must be addressed by policies, procedures, and technologies. Decision makers across the enterprise should understand the overall scope of the insider threat problem and communicate it to all the organization’s employees.

This module discusses how organizations can effectively mitigate the potential of insider threats and build an effective program.

Instructor: Summer Fowler

In this module, students will use real-world strategic objectives to develop specific business goals and the applicable questions, indicators, and actionable metrics that they can implement at their own organizations to improve their ability to manage operational risks, particularly cybersecurity risks.

Instructor: Omar Khawaja

This module is an overview of practical “day-to-day" operations. The module will cover how to properly plan, structure, and report on your security team, as well as obtain “buy-in” from your organization. This clear outline of the security structure will better enable CISOs to demonstrate the charter and effectiveness of the security team to their organizations.

Instructor: Gen. Gregory Touhill

This module is focused on the requirement for today’s CISOs to develop a budget that aligns with the annual strategic planning process and is supported by key organizational stakeholders. This often needs to be developed in environments with significant third-party managed services and where growth strategies include regular business acquisitions and divestitures.

Instructor: Chris Labash & Summer Fowler

This module will discuss effective ways to communicate security related organizational goals to the board. Incident summary board presentations will also occur during this module delivery, with the instructors and invited guests providing constructive feedback to the teams as they are delivered.

Instructor: Tom Pageler & Jim Routh

This module is designed to review the ongoing pressures that a CISO faces when dealing with constant change, such as: traditional change control, changes to company strategy, regulatory or industry changes, changes due to mergers and acquisitions, and organizational changes due to staff turnover.

Instructor: Ari Lightman

DT deals with the increasing levels of digital interactions, online processes, platforms and applications as well as the inundation of data in both our consumer and professional lives. This module is designed to examine four areas that are rapidly changing due to DT. The session is designed to assess security implications for each area, present case studies on companies dealing with these issues, and build a framework interactively with the class.

Instructor: Rich Friedberg

As more organizations embrace the benefits of cloud-based infrastructures and services, they face significant challenges in how to secure their information and applications. In addition, new pressures are placed on security teams to automate and deliver at speed, while key security roles and responsibilities move into development teams.

This module will examine the changes to risks, threats, and vulnerabilities when companies move from on-prem to cloud services. The module will also discuss how to develop a business-focused security strategy to balance enabling transformation with protecting the organization through their cloud journey.

Instructor: Chris Valasek

This module will familiarize students with current security protection technologies in order to understand their abilities and deficiencies, along with analyzing attacker motives and patterns when targeting an organization. Through a combination of security knowledge and attacker analysis, students will be better able to focus security attention on highly targeted assets. The module will also discuss best practices for vendor relationship management.

Instructor: Josh Corman

Since modern programs necessitate working smarter, we will look at specific asymmetric gains to be had by teaming outside of OpSec to invest in defensible infrastructure, IT operational excellence, and situational awareness required to have a fighting chance. Through a combination of lecture material, exercises, and discussion, students are exposed to modern and emerging threat management concepts, the implementation and institutionalization of these concepts, and the ways in which organizations can use them to positively affect risk management activities toward common goals.

Instructor: Greg Porter

This module will begin with an overview of the current threat landscape and examine the array of adversary classes facing organizations. The session will then provide CISO students with a pragmatic overview of common issues and challenges in developing, maintaining, and operating an effective incident management and forensics capability. The module will also cover the current state of security operations center best practices, and will conclude with an overview of supporting frameworks, and the types of tools and infrastructure needed to be effective to respond to cyber incidents and increase end-users' resilience.

Instructor: Matthew Meade

An Analysis of Legal Obligations, Legal Consequences, and Best Practices

While CISOs are well-prepared to handle IT and forensic issues, guidance on the legal consequences and legal obligations is often siloed to in-house counsel and not part of a collaborative effort. Through this practical and interactive session, students will learn about the following:

(1) the legal aspects of a proactive approach to cybersecurity;

(2) state and federal law issues associated with responding and reacting to a security incident; and

(3) litigation and regulatory investigations arising from data breaches.

Instructor: Larry Kamer

This module explores the CISO’s role in developing and executing an effective internal and external communications strategy when faced with a large scale breach that impacts the operations of the organization. This module will reference various relevant case studies to help students develop a comprehensive approach.