Information Security, Information Technology
Proving that Cyber Security is not an illusion
Security and privacy are fundamental concepts in the digital age. Real world implications and applications are everywhere around us: the browser you use to shop over the Internet, the mobile phone you hold conversations over, the bank card in your wallet, the way you travel, the car keys in your pocket, to casting electronic votes.
Master's Programme in Information Security offers both breadth and depth in education to students, providing them with diverse career opportunities. Preliminary courses provide essential security and privacy skills, and subsequent courses allow students to specialize in specific security and privacy domains. The demand for security professionals has never been higher, and is growing at an astounding pace!
Our Information Security research spans from theoretical to applied aspects of security and privacy, and everywhere in between. Our research appears in globally top ranked venues such as IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, and USENIX Security Symposium, to name a few – major recruiting outlets for both industry and academia. Our research projects are financed ranging from Business Finland, Academy of Finland, Horizon 2020, to the European Research Council. Please see additional information on Network and Information Security Group (NISEC).
Students completing our programme have wealth of career options, ranging from industry security professionals to continuing on the research path in our doctoral programme, driven by our research-based teaching methods.
Check out why you too should study Information Technology
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Link to scholarship programme
Students following this programme will gain an understanding of the nature of the security and privacy threats that face computer systems. In addition to that, they will examine various aspects of security in widely deployed communication networks, including both theoretical and practical areas. Furthermore, an introduction to cryptography and its application will be offered. At the end of the programme students will be able to understand why cryptography is not the solution to all of our security problems. Moreover, students will be able to carry out security and risk assessments using attacks and techniques seen in the field. Overall, students will be exposed to a multitude of exciting open problems in the field and will be given the opportunity to work on both theoretical and practical projects related to security. Finally, students will benefit from a broad and varied array of state-of-the-art technologies.
The official language of the programme is English, meaning that all the courses, exams and student services are arranged in English. Consequently, proficiency in both written and spoken English is an absolute prerequisite. Students are required to submit an approved certificate of their language proficiency when applying for admission. In addition, students are required to complete a courses in the Finnish language. The course provides them with an introduction to everyday Finnish and Finnish culture.
All students will take the core courses designed to give a comprehensive introduction into this specialist field by covering the fundamentals of information security and privacy – especially why the latter is so difficult to achieve in practice. Subsequently, students will have the opportunity to take several courses related to cryptography, network security, software security, access and identity management. During these courses, students will not only learn how to protect a system from certain attacks but also how to find new ones – analyze the security of a system. Hence, by the end of the programme, students will learn to think in both rational and irrational ways – a fundamental property in the area of information security.
Our programme offers leading edge studying and research facilities. Cyber Labs – our education and research laboratory – contains network devices such as switches, routers, and next generation firewalls, which are the basic building block for network security research. In addition, Cyber Labs contains virtualization platforms, SDN capability, a traffic generator tool and a network monitoring tool. The background lab network consists of a full 3 Tier network that allows behavioral experimentation in a simulated Internet.
Teaching methods include lab-based sessions, student-led tutorials, seminars, and lectures by internal staff and guest speakers from industry and academia. Our courses are offered by highly experienced, friendly staff, and benefit from the diverse specialist knowledge and skills within the Faculty. Assessments are carried out mostly through practical or research-based course work.
The tuition fee of the programme is 12 000 euros per academic year for non-EU/EEA students with a scholarship system for fee-paying students. For more information, please see Tuition Fees and Scholarships.
The programme is comprised of 120 ECTS. Courses are worth 90 ECTS and the remaining 30 ECTS are awarded for successfully completing a master's thesis. Each ECTS is equal to an average workload of 27 hours, including lectures, exercises, assignments, independent study and an examination. The duration of the programme is two years. Students spend three semesters completing courses and one semester preparing the final project (master's thesis). They start their studies in late August, and the academic year ends in late May.
For more information, please see the Curriculum.
Information security professionals work in every size company and industry to protect organizations from data breaches and attacks. By studying our programme, students get the necessary skills allowing them to follow a wide range of career paths such as:
- Researcher in Applied Cryptography;
- Researcher in Network / Computer Security;
- IT Security Engineer / Operations Specialist;
- Product Security Engineer;
- Penetration Tester / White Hat Hacker / Ethical Hacker;
- Source Code Auditor;
- Vulnerability Assessor;
- Computer Security Incident Responder;
- Information Security Analyst / Consultant / Assurance Officer / Assurance Analyst / Risk Officer;
- Cyber Security Manager;
- Security Officer;
- Computer Forensics Analyst;
- Anti-Piracy / Content Protection Analyst.
Our staff is a key contact point for companies of all sizes – from startups to industry giants, both domestic and international – for critical staffing needs in the area of security. The need for formally educated security engineers is tremendous and still growing!
Tampere University actively promotes connecting with leading scholars in the field of security and privacy. To this end, our academic staff has established collaboration with leading organizations, research institutes and Universities through international projects and research activities. In this programme, the students will have the opportunity – during thesis work – to be actively involved in tasks related to research projects and thus establish or extend their international professional network.
Carefully read through the general eligibility criteria and the programme-specific eligibility criteria and see whether you meet them. For additional questions on applying, application documents and application process, please contact our Admissions office. For questions regarding the content of the programme, please contact it.studies.tau [at] tuni.fi.
Click to see the admissions criteria
Tampere University master's programme application period 2022
8 December 2021 - 12 January 2022 3:00 p.m. (GMT+2)
Eligibility criteria in the master's programmes consist of two parts: Tampere University's general eligibility criteria, and programme-specific eligibility criteria, which specify and/or add information to the general criteria. Applicant must meet both to be considered eligible. Applicants who do not meet both the general eligibility and the programme-specific eligibility criteria will not be selected as students in Tampere University.
General eligibility
To be eligible to apply to a master’s programme at Tampere University, you must have:
1. Bachelor’s degree - nationally recognized first cycle degree
- an applicable bachelor’s degree at a university or a university of applied sciences in Finland
- a bachelor's degree completed in a university outside Finland which provides eligibility for equivalent University master’s degree studies in the country in which it was awarded.
- with a minimum scope of 180 ECTS credits, three to four years of full-time study
- from a relevant field for the master’s degree programme that you’re applying to
- from a recognised institution of higher education
2. A good command of the English language for academic purposes. For more information, please see Language requirements.
Applicants in their final year of the bachelor’s degree, who are due to graduate in the spring of 2022, are eligible to apply if the degree will be completed by 31 July 2022, provided that you fulfil all other requirements and deliver officially certified copies of educational documents by 22 August 2022. In this case, they would be accepted conditionally. Their applications will be assessed based on the officially certified transcript of records which they submit at the time of applying. Please see special instructions for applicants in the final year of the Bachelor's degree.
Admission to studies leading directly to a master's degree will be based on the applicant’s bachelor's degree conferred by a university or a university of applied sciences. Depending on programme-specific admission requirements, the programme may take into account skills previously acquired by applicants when considering applications.
Please see detailed information on the General eligibility criteria web page.
Programme specific eligibility criteria
The previous degree should be from a field closely related to the Master's Programme you are applying to. In the specialisation of Information Security in the Master’s Programme in Information Technology the previous degree has to be in one of the following (or highly related) fields:
- computing, information technology, computer science, electrical engineering, software engineering or other applicable field with proficiency in mathematics, physics and elementary programming skills
For applicants who have completed their degree in a University of Applied Sciences (AMK) or a University in Finland the required minimum GPA is the same as in the admission to the Master’s degree programmes offered in Finnish.
Minimum GPA for Bachelor of Engineering degrees completed in a Finnish University of Applied Sciences (AMK):
3,20/5
Minimum GPA for Bachelor's degrees completed in a Finnish university (yliopisto):
2,80/5
An admission score will be calculated for all applicants who meet the minimum requirements.
When counting the unrounded GPA (calculated to two decimal points) weighted by ECTS only the courses (incl. thesis) with numeric grade value are taken into account. Applicants in their final year of Bachelor’s degree must meet the minimum cumulative GPA when applying and after graduation.
If you have not yet graduated from your current institution, you may receive a conditional offer of admission. The offer will be withdrawn if your final GPA falls below the minimum requirements.
When applying to a master’s programme at Tampere University, you must submit evidence of your good command of the English language for academic purposes. You have two options of demonstrating your English language proficiency: language tests or previous studies.
In both cases you must submit a document as a proof of language skills. Please see detailed instructions and additional information on the language requirements web page.
Tests and the required minimum results
TOEFL iBT/ TOEFL iBT Home Edition/ TOEFL iBT Special Home Edition
92 overall with no section below 20
IELTS Academic/ IELTS Indicator
6.5 overall with no section below 5.5
PTE Academic
62 overall with no section in Communicative Skills below 42
C1 Advanced, previous as CAE
C
C2 Proficiency, previous as CPE
C1
National Certificate of Language, Proficiency (English)
Proficiency level 5 on all the subtests (reading, writing, listening and speaking).
Please see detailed instructions and additional information on the language tests accepted on the language requirements web page.
Previous studies
It is possible to be exempted from submitting a language test score if you have completed particular studies listed by Tampere University that demonstrate your good command of English for academic purposes. Only studies that fulfill the criteria will be accepted, so if you apply without a valid language test result, carefully examine the exemptions listed by Tampere University and how to submit documents.
50 students for the programme in Information Technology.
The Master's Programme in Information Technology has an intake in 2022 for the following specialisations: 1) Communication Systems and Networks, 2) Embedded systems and 3) Information Security.
Students are selected to the programme from those applicants who submit a complete application (application and sufficient application documents) by the deadline and fulfil the official eligibility criteria.
The student selection is made by an admissions committee based on the academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents. Please note that not all applicants fulfilling the requirements can be admitted.
Students admitted to a Master’s programme may be required to complement their earlier degree with complementary studies. The complementary studies will be decided at the faculty case by case (maximum 60 ECTS credits).
The number of eligible applicants annually exceeds the number of students that can be accepted. The student selection is made by an admissions committee based on the academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents. Please note that not all applicants fulfilling the requirements can be admitted.
Student admission will be based on the faculty’s academic assessment of applicants’ prior degree and the merits presented in their application documents. Applicants will be ranked according to an admission score that is calculated based on their existing degree, proficiency in the English language and other supporting factors.
Admission points (maximum 100 points) are given in the following categories:
- Previous qualifications maximum 60 points
- English language skills maximum 10 points:
- Other relevant factors that support the application maximum 30 points
The main supporting documents attached to the application, which are considered when calculating the admission score, are a CV and a letter of motivation.
An admission score will be calculated for all applicants who meet the minimum requirements. Applicants will be divided into three groups based on their preferred study option and their existing qualifications (degrees completed in Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences / in Finnish universities / foreign degrees). Please see the section on Eligibility for the required minimum GPA for applicants who have completed their degree in a University of Applied Sciences (AMK) or a University in Finland.
Admissions step-by-step checklist
- Check the general eligibility and programme-specific eligibility criteria of the programme/s you wish to apply. You are allowed to apply to three programmes at the same time.
- Read through the instructions on how to apply and start preparing your application documents as early as possible!
- Take a language test if required, please see the language requirements.
- When the application period opens, fill in the online application at Studyinfo.fi during the application period and upload required enclosures to the application. The application period is 8 December 2021 at 8.00 (UTC+2) - 12 January 2022 at 15.00 (UTC+2).
- Upload all required enclosures and send the educational documents by post to Tampere University Admissions Office within two weeks, by 26 January 2022 at 15.00 (UTC+2). The documents must reach the University by the given deadline and they must be delivered according to the country-specific requirements, if applicable.
- You can apply for a scholarship on the application form, if applicable.
- Wait for the admission results to be announced at the end of March 2022.
- If you are offered a study place, remember to accept it by the given deadline. Pay the tuition fee, if required.
- Start preparing for your arrival in Finland well in advance.
- Register as a student and join the Tampere University community when the studies start in August 2022!
Additional information on application process in detail.
Online application form
The online application form will be available only during the application period at Studyinfo.fi. The application period starts on 8 December 2021 at 8.00 (UTC+2) and ends on 12 January 2022 at 15.00 (UTC+2).
You will need to upload copies of all required documents as enclosures on the application form. In addition to the general application enclosures, some programmes have listed additional programme-specific enclosures that are needed when applying to these specific programmes.
In addition to uploading the application documents as enclosures to your application form in Studyinfo.fi, you must submit the officially certified copies of your educational documents to Tampere University Admissions Office by post according to the Tampere University instructions. Applicants whose degrees have been awarded in certain countries need to pay special attention to the documentation and documents from these countries must be submitted in a particular way. These country-specific requirements must always be followed first and foremost, prior to the regular requirements.
Applicants must post the educational documents to Tampere University Admissions Office so that they arrive by 26 January 2022 at 15.00 (UTC+2). Please see the list of the required general application enclosures and detailed instructions on the Application documents webpage.
There are no programme-specific enclosures when applying to this programme.
Admissions results will be announced at the end of March 2022. All applicants will be informed about the admissions results.
Please see additional information regarding the publication of student selection results and Tampere University rectification procedure.