Digital Forensics
Bring your inquisitive mind and investigation skills and we’ll teach you everything you need to know to solve crimes using digital information.
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Key Course Details
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UCAS Code
FG44
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Start Date
September
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Location
Newport
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Campus Code
C
Fees
Home students
£9,535*
International students
£16,200*
- Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.
Whether crime happens online or is organised through digital channels, digital forensics is key to bringing perpetrators to justice. When you study a BSc in digital forensics, you’ll learn to access, gather, and interpret data to uncover the truth and serve as an expert witness.
Designed For
Not all heroes wear capes. Our Digital Forensics graduates are crime fighters of the future, not just solving crimes, but preventing them by enhancing digital security for private and public sector organisations. Our industry links mean you’ll complete your degree ready to get straight to work.
Accredited by
- BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
Career Paths
- Digital forensics investigator
- Cyber threat analyst
- Malware analyst
- Law enforcement
- Military / government intelligence
- Incident Response Analyst
Skills taught
- Digital Evidence Acquisition
- Data recovery and Analysis
- Cybercrime Investigation
- Expert witness and Courtroom skills
- Incident Response
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Course Highlights
Course Overview
Our Digital Forensics degree tackles the online challenges society and organisations face and gives you the skills to solve them. From gathering evidence, analysing data and reconstructing digital events, to defending your findings as an expert witness, you will become an expert in the field.
Year one
Programming
Professional Practice and Employability
Network Configuration
Information Security and Governance
Cyber Security Tools and Practices
Computer Systems & Security
Year two
Forensic Digital Evidence
Digital Crime Scene Management
Cyber Crime Research Project
Compliance and Risk Management
Security Data with Cryptography
Post Incident Analysis
Year three
Digital Forensic Techniques
Cyber Professional in Practice
Secure Operations and Incident Management
Cyber Dissertation Project
Your first year introduces you to computing concepts, including cyber security tools and practices and information security and governance. From day one, you’ll put your learning into practice. With each concept we introduce, you’ll study the theory and then apply it to practical tasks.
Programming
Learn the fundamentals of procedural programming to understand the factors associated with the development of applications. Customise and build simple applications.
Professional Practice and Employability
Develop professional practice in computing, developing academic skills and knowledge relating to legal, social, ethical, and professional aspects of computing.
Network Configuration
Learn basic networking concepts in a practical context, including the design, installation, and configuration of a network. Understand networking protocols and services.
Information Security and Governance
Develop the knowledge of the underlying principles of IT Governance and Information Security.
Cyber Security Tools and Practices
Build the tools and practices used within the cybersecurity industry, within the context of legal, social, ethical, and professional issues.
Computer Systems and Security
Learn the fundamental architecture and function of computer systems to underpin the practical aspects of cyber security and digital forensics.
Year two builds on your year one learning with more focus on the various disciplines of digital forensics and a focus on technical and professional skills. You’ll have the chance to act as a digital forensic investigator, visit a crime scene, and develop your skills within incident response.
Forensic Digital Evidence
Learn the tools and techniques associated with computer forensics and develop your ability to apply computer forensics principles to real-life problems.
Digital Crime Scene Management
Develop and demonstrate knowledge of the tools and techniques associated with the creation and delivery of a digital forensic investigation.
Cyber Crime Research Project
Learn how to critically research and examine a topic in depth to produce a research paper. This module will prepare you for your final-year dissertation project.
Compliance and Risk Management
Evaluate and analyse the underlying principles of strategic risk management, governance, and compliance strategies.
Security Data with Cryptography
Develop your understanding of cryptography and cryptanalysis.
Post Incident Analysis
Demonstrate and evaluate a systematic understanding of the principles and practices associated with post-incident analysis and Incident Response.
In year three, you’ll further develop your skills and demonstrate your abilities through your individual project. Using our dedicated facilities you'll conduct investigations, respond to simulated live attacks and be trained as an expert witness, preparing you for a career fighting cybercrime.
Digital Forensic Techniques
Develop advanced practical and theoretical principles regarding digital forensics. Learn to evaluate, analyse, and apply investigative solutions.
Cyber Professional in Practice
Develop critical awareness and demonstrate knowledge of workplace conduct, equality, and diversity legislation and practices.
Secure Operations and Incident Management
Evaluate, analyse, and synthesize the capability to perform security operations and incident management.
Cyber Dissertation Project
Your opportunity to research, design, develop, and evaluate a solution to a problem identified within the specialised programme of study.
Course Highlights
How you'll learn
You’ll learn the essential skills to combat cybercrime in an engaging way that helps you put your new skills to the test. Our high-spec, specialist labs provide a digital playground, while our separate cyber network allows you to hone your skills within areas such as password cracking, malware analysis, and incident response ensuring the wider University network remains secure. Our SOC and crime scene facilities provide environments as close to the real world as you can get.
Our connections with police forces and private companies provide you with exceptional work placement opportunities and guest lecturers bring the real world to you.
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Teaching staff
Our teaching staff bring their own industry experience to your learning. Drawn from across the digital forensics field, the team combines academic excellence with real-world work to bring you the best, most relevant experience. Using their industry contacts, our teaching team enhances your learning by bringing real-life case studies, licenced software, guest lecturers and work experience provision to your study.
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Placements
To improve your employment prospects, we encourage you to spend up to a year working in the industry at one of a variety of organisations and Digital Forensic Units in the UK, through USW Placements. This can often lead to employment opportunities with your placement company. The Cyber department at the University of South Wales has excellent relationships with industry and law enforcement, offering placements within the digital forensic units of South Wales Police, Gwent Police, and various private sector companies responsible for handling cyber-attacks.
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Facilities
We take great pride in our dedicated digital facilities. Our mission is to make sure you graduate ready for the world of work, so we have created dedicated, high-tech specialist digital forensics labs equipped with industry-leading certified licensed software and tools. Our Secure Operations Centre (SOC) is modelled on those used by law enforcement agencies and corporate businesses. Our crime scene house lets you practice working within realistic crime scenes.
We provide expert witness training, and you’ll get the chance to defend your reports in our moot court.
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ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
UCAS Points: 104 (or above)
Typical qualification requirements:
- A Level: BCC
- Welsh BACC: Advanced Skills Baccalaureate Wales Grade C/B and BC – CC at A Level
- BTEC: BTEC Extended Diploma Distinction Merit Merit
- Access to HE: Pass the Access to HE Diploma and obtain a minimum of 104 UCAS tariff points.
- T Level: Pass (C and above)
Additional Requirements:
The University normally requires a minimum 5 GCSE’s including Mathematics/Numeracy and English at Grade C or Grade 4 or above, or their equivalent, but consideration is given to individual circumstances.
International applications welcomed:
We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.
English language requirements
International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 72 overall and a minimum of 18 in reading, 17 in listening, 20 in speaking and 17 in writing or equivalent.
Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.
If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.
If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.
Contextual offers
We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.
USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.
We're here to help
Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.
Fees and Funding
£9,535
per year*£16,200
per year*Additional Costs
As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.
A number of events, such as careers talks, guest lectures etc will be available to students and may take place at locations other than the Newport campus. Students will be expected to pay the cost of transport to these events, which will of course depend on where students live.
Cost: £0 - £25
The course includes some activities that are held at specialised locations such as the Crime Scene House at Glyntaff campus and a visit and tour of the Cardiff Crown Court. Students will be expected to pay the cost of transport to these events, which will of course depend on where students live. There are approximately two occurrences of this type throughout the course.
Cost: £0-25
Throughout the course students will have the opportunity to undertake learning, working towards professional and industry led certificates such as CISCO’s Cyber Ops, Bond Solon Expert Witness Skills, EC-Council’s Certified Incident Handler. Some of these certificates are available at an additional cost to students, however they are all offered at a reduced educational discount that may not be available outside of Higher Education.
Cost: Subject to confirmation
University Quality Assurance
At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.
If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.
How to apply
All applications for full-time undergraduate courses or foundation degrees should be made via UCAS. Take the next step: Apply through UCAS. You can apply to us directly for all part-time undergraduate courses, if you’re seeking advanced entry or you’re an international student. To apply directly, please choose the application form below for your preferred start date and mode of study (full-time or part-time.)
Advanced entry
If you already have a relevant qualification or experience related to the course you're applying for, you may be eligible to start at a later stage of the course. For example, students from partner colleges can ‘top up’ their qualifications to a degree by joining us in Year Two or Year Three of a course. This process is known as ‘advanced entry’, you can apply directly to the University for 'advanced entry' using the application forms provided above.
International admissions
International applicants can apply to us directly. If the University has an in-country team in your region, your application will be assigned to them for assistance.
Life at USW
Halls are a big part of your student experience and there’s accommodation at all three of our locations. If you don’t want to live near the campus, there are great transport links to keep you connected.
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