Subject guides · · 2 min read
Studying cybersecurity and software engineering in China
China has the world's largest internet user base and a large cybersecurity industry. Here is where to study it.
Quick answer
Where to study
Wuhan University has the strongest information security department in the country, developed alongside its geodesy and information engineering strength. UESTC is the leading electronics and communications university and strong in secure communications. Beijing Institute of Technology has a dedicated school of cyberspace science and technology, and Shanghai Jiao Tong, Zhejiang and HUST all run strong software and security programmes.
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Information Engineering are also notable research sites.
What is studied
Cryptography, network security, systems security, reverse engineering, mobile and IoT security, applied machine learning for detection, and increasingly the legal and policy side including data protection under the Personal Information Protection Law — China's GDPR-equivalent.
Chinese cybersecurity programmes are strongly systems-oriented: students write a lot of code and study real attack and defence cases rather than policy alone.
Career note
Some areas of cybersecurity research in China touch on national security and may be restricted for international students. Industrial and commercial security work — application security, cloud security, threat analysis — is far more accessible and is where most international graduates would work anyway.