CSCE 665: Advanced Networking and Security

Fall 2009

Instructor:        Dr. Guofei Gu (guofei@cse, 502C HRBB)

Lectures:         Tuesday, Thursday 5:30-6:45pm, Rm 126 HRBB

Office Hour:    By appointment

TA:                   Weiqin Ma (weiqinma@cse)

TA' s Office Hour: By appointment

Announcements

• [11/23] The schedule of project presentation is announced. Please check your time.
• [11/12] Lab 3 - mini cyber security competition starts now! Good luck, guys!
• [10/26] Project progress report due is changed from 11/3 to 11/5.
• [10/13] Lab 2 is posted. Please check CSNET. It's due on 10/29.
• [9/17] Lab 1 is out. You need to login to CSNET to see it. It's due on 10/1.
• [9/8] Tentative schedule of student presentation is posted. Check your date and prepare!
• [9/1] Welcome to the class! Assignment 0 is out. It's due on Sept. 15.

Course Description

Prerequisites: Operating Systems, Computer Networks, and C/C++ and/or Java.

This course will introduce various modern topics in computer and network security. It will provide a thorough grounding in computer and network security suitable for those interested in conducting research in this area, as well as students more broadly interested in real-world security issues/techniques. Topics may span (but not limited to):

• Applied crypto: such as private/public key cryptograph, realworld cryptosystems 
• Network security: such as DDoS, Worm, IDS, botnet
• System security: such as malware analysis/defense, virtualization for security, information flow
• Application security: such as web security, spam
• Privacy: such as anonymity, covert channel, information leak, data privacy

Textbook (s): There is no required textbook. Most readings will be from research papers in top security conferences and journals (listed below). In addition to research papers, you may also read the following textbooks for more security background.

• [KPS] Charlie Kaufman, Radia Perlman, and Mike Speciner. Network Security—Private Communication in a Public World, 2nd Edition. Prentice Hall, 2002. ISBN 978-0-13-046019-6.
• [PP] Charles P. Pfleeger and Shari Lawrence Pfleeger. Security in Computing, Fourth Edition. Prentice Hall, 2007. ISBN 0-13-239077-9. 
• [SB] William Stallings and Lawrie Brown. Computer Security: Principles and Practice. Prientice Hall, 2007. ISBN 0136004245.

Three hours of lecture per week. (3 units)

Grading

Paper mini-review, presentation, and discussion: 25% 
Assignment/Lab: 35% 
Mini research project: 35%
Participation: 5%

There is no mid-term or final exam.

All late submissions (but still within one day after the deadline) will automatically lose half points. Submissions one day after the deadline will NOT be accepted.

There will be bonus points for EXCELLENT mini research projects.

Assignments and Labs

There will be several assignments/labs. You will be asked to finish well-instructed programing assignments or labs by yourself and submit necessary reports in CSNET. 

• Assignment 0 will be related to a network sniffer programming. [5 pt]
• Lab 1 will be related to buffer overflow attack and defense. [7 pt]
• Lab 2 will be related to web security (cross-site scripting attack, cross-site request forgery, browser Same-Origin Policy). [10 pt]
• In Lab 3, you will participate in a mini cyber defense competition. Our rules will be similar to National CCDC.  [13 pt]

Mini Research Project

There will be a term project. You will do research in a team of two or individually. You can choose any interested topic in computer/network security (not necessary a topic discussed in class, and, tied with your current research is encouraged). Be ambitious and start thinking of project topics early!

A project proposal should contain introduction (motivation, problem statement), proposed technique/solution, related work (and comparison), project plan (tasks, timeline, job split in the team).

The final report is expected to be a workshop quality paper. For your information, the deadline of 3rd USENIX Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats (LEET '10) is Feb. 25, a good timing for you to target if you do an excellent mini project.

A project progress report is essentially close to the final report with some experiments/evaluation to be filled.

Paper mini-review and presentation:

Before every class, you are expected to read all corresponding readings (listed below), particularly [basics] and [required].

You need to write a mini-review for each paper marked as [required]. This mini-review can include:

• Problem domain: background, motivation, why this problem is important/novel/interesting
• Idea of the paper: assumption, main technique, result
• Comparison with related work 
• Possible future work/direction
• Pros, cons of the paper (your conclusion)
• What can we do based on this work: lesson learned from this work? stimulate new related problem? flawed assumption/technique can be improved/extended? technique can be used to other (maybe your own dedicated) domain to solve other problem? what extension can we do for further work? ...

The mini-reviews are to be done individually and submited in CSNET before the midnight prior to the corresponding lecture. 

You need to present papers for a certain topic in one calss. You need to read deeply in all papers in that day's class, including [required] and [further readings]. As a paper presenter, you don't need to submit a review, but you should prepare slides, present to the class, and steer the extensive discussion (your need to prepare a list of discussion questions on the topic/papers, sometimes also incorporate all other students' review comments on the topic/papers). Please send the final slides to the instructor within at most two days.

Ethics & Academic Integrity

We will study/discuss threats and attacks in class. You should be fully aware of ethics when studying these techniques. If in any context you are not sure about where to draw the line, come talk to me first.

"An Aggie does not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do."

Upon accepting admission to Texas A&M University, a student immediately assumes a commitment to uphold the Honor Code, to accept responsibility for learning, and to follow the philosophy and rules of the Honor System. Students will be required to state their commitment on examinations, research papers, and other academic work. Ignorance of the rules does not exclude any member of the TAMU community from the requirements or the processes of the Honor System.

Schedule (tentative)

This tentative schedule will be updated as the course progresses. Please check back for most recent update!

Acknowledgment