1. CDA6938/COT4932 Special Topic: Research in Computer and Network Security (spring’06)
Class Overview

2. Tuesday/Thursday 4:30pm – 5:45pm Office Hour: 2:30pm – 4:30pm
CSB223,
Class webpage:

3. Why Am I Teaching This Course?
Computer and Network Security is important
A broad research/application issue
Impact on many important applications
Become more important as we rely heavily on computer and the Internet
Helpful to your study and future career:
If you plan to conduct computer security research related work
If you plan to conduct any research-related work
Help you to learn basic steps in conducting research

4. A “Seminar” Course Focus on cybersecurity-related research
Study research papers, publications
Students must have active roles:
Present papers in class
Be active in class discussion!
Be active to ask questions in class!
Not an introductory class on computer security
No lab experiments
No introduction on security appliance
However, you are not required to have knowledge of computer security beforehand

5. Prerequisite You must have knowledge of computer networking!
TCP/IP, packet, Internet (addr., DNS, routing…)
Basic knowledge on:
Probability (most research work uses this!)
Software (stack, system call…)
Operating system

6. Class Grading Policy Class presentations: 20%
Homework (paper review/summary):      15%
In-class participation/discussion:    %
Final term project:                   %
Two students as a group

7. Policy on COT4932 Students Still get credit for COT4932
Have a lower class requirement
Less in-depth research study
Paper presentation, homework
Term project does not need to contain novel idea
Survey of a topic
Realization of experiments in a published paper
Separate grading from CDA6938 students

8. Topics Covered in Class
Focus mainly on wired Internet security
Internet worm, Internet security measurement
Honeypot, Spam, Denial-of-Service, Intrusion Detection
Network attack techniques
Will also cover:
host-based computer security
Software security
Wireless security
Sensor network security issues
Wireless LAN security
Emerging applications security issues:
RFID security and privacy
More to be added in the following two weeks

9. Term Project Two students form a group to do term project together
A research oriented term project
Project report in the same format as a paper for publish
Learn how to conduct research and write paper
Form the group and decide the title 6-8 weeks later

10. Example of Term Project
Simple:
Survey of the state-of-art research work in a topic
Repeat and realize algorithm/experiments in a published paper
Middle:
Minor improvement of algorithms in published papers
Advanced:
Present a novel idea with support from simulation or real experiments
E.g., success in using an idea from the old area to a new topic
Has potential to be developed as a published paper

11. What I know and Do not know
I know most research in Internet security
Especially on Internet worm research
I have some knowledge in:
Intrusion detection, software security
Wireless security
Hence the course will evolve as we go on
I will also learn from this course

12. Class Format Papers are grouped according to topics
As we move to a new topic, I will present a brief introduction
In each class, two students present two papers
Presentation: 25 min
Discussion: min
My summary: 5 min (at the end)

13. Next Class
I will present two papers of mine in the topic “Internet malware modeling and defense”
Give you an example on paper presentation
Show how to ask questions in reading a paper
Show how to find points to do further research
Please glance over these two papers before Thursday class
Come ready to ask questions and discuss