Welcome to 18-731: Network Security

Instructor: Adrian Perrig, office hours Friday 3:30-4:30pm in CIC 2107.
Co-instructor in Portugal: Nuno Ferreira Neves, office hours TBA.
TAs: Non-INI students can get into INI for office hours by using the buzzer. Else you could call the TAs on their phone numbers to let you in.

We will meet Tuesday and Thursday in CIC 1201 (DEC) 10:30-11:50am.
Please send email to the instructor mailing list at: 18731-s09-instructors at lists.andrew.cmu.edu.

Course Description:
Some of today's most damaging attacks on computer systems involve exploitation of network infrastructure, either as the target of attack or as a vehicle to advance attacks on end systems. This course provides an in-depth study of network attack techniques and methods to defend against them. Topics include firewalls and virtual private networks; network intrusion detection; denial of service (DoS) and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks; DoS and DDoS detection and reaction; worm and virus propagation; tracing the source of attacks; traffic analysis; techniques for hiding the source or destination of network traffic; secure routing protocols; protocol scrubbing; and advanced techniques for reacting to network attacks.

The course will involve a substantial research project and some smaller programming projects in C, students are expected to have a solid foundation in C and Unix programming.

Students are also expected to have passed the introductory security classes 18-630 or 18-730 and understand concepts of applied cryptography. To refresh this material, you can read the following chapters in Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 18, 19.3, 22.

Syllabus

Suggested (optional) Textbook:
Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and Practice (4th edition) by Stallings.
Security and Cooperation in Wireless Networks: Thwarting Malicious and Selfish Behavior in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing by Buttyan and Hubaux.

Late Policy:
The deadline for homework assignments (not project reports!) can be extended with a 10% penalty per day. No deadline can be extended by more than two days (so assignments will NOT be accepted 48 hours after the due date).

Collaboration Policy:
Students are encouraged to talk to each other, to the TAs, to the instructor, or to anyone else about any of the assignments. Any assistance, though, must be limited to discussion of the problem and sketching general approaches to a solution. Each student must write out his or her own solutions to the homeworks. Consulting another student's or group's solution is prohibited, and submitted solutions may not be copied from any source. These and any other form of collaboration on assignments constitute cheating. If you have any question about whether some activity would constitute cheating, please feel free to ask.

Grading:
Your final grade for the course will be based on the following weights for the individual assignments: The midterm and final exams will be closed-book.