Master's in Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Engineering

The Polytechnic University of Beja established the first Master's degree in Offensive Engineering in Portugal, launched in the academic year 2011/2012. Originally named "Master's in Computer Security Engineering" (MESI), it was the first Master's program in the country to teach computer system attack techniques, with the goal of better preparing students for defense. In addition to this innovation, MESI also pioneered the teaching of Law to Engineers, aiming to provide them with a strong awareness of Crime and particularly Cybercrime.

MESI operated successfully for 16 years, and in the academic year 2026/2027 it was thoroughly restructured, not only in its Study Plan but also in its designation, becoming the "Master's in Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Engineering", adopting the acronym "MEC2".

In this overhaul: (i) classroom hours were increased by 50% in the course unit "Penetration Testing and Exploit Development", (ii) a new course unit was introduced focusing on "Disinformation and Computer Fraud", (iii) classroom hours were increased by 50% in the course unit "Cybercrime and Digital Forensics", and (iv) student support in scientific research was restructured through three new course units preceding and preparing for the Master's Dissertation: "Introduction to Research and Science Communication", "Scientific Research Methodologies", and "Dissertation Project".

Following previous years' success, our Master's degree filled all available vacancies, with the remarkable distinction that in this first year of MEC2 (2026/2027), all vacancies were filled right in the first phase of the national application call.

The study plan for MEC2 is as follows: