The NSA sponsors ‘cyber operations’ training at universities. Here’s what students learn.

The National Security Agency has run a “cyber operations” program since 2012 -- working with Northeastern University, Dakota State, the University of Tulsa and the Naval Postgraduate School -- to design curricula that match the agency’s intelligence and infrastructure needs. The purpose, says Carnegie Mellon’s Dena Haritos Tsamitis, is to shift capabilities from “cyber defense” to “cyber offense.” It’s also to funnel the next generation of analysts and hackers directly to the NSA, CIA, Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies and contractors.

To be clear, the NSA doesn’t teach these classes or dictate what faculty members teach, but schools compete fiercely for NSA certification. At Carnegie Mellon University, aspiring government hackers, programmers and cybersecurity analysts start out with basics such as “fundamentals of telecommunications networks” and “introduction to computer security” before moving on to courses in mobile security, operating systems and Internet services. All students also take a class on “applied cryptography” during their second year, which covers both how to encrypt digital information and how to crack encrypted signals.