CDA6938 Special Topic:
Research in Computer and
Network Security (spring’07)
Class Overview
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Tuesday/Thursday 4:30pm – 5:45pm
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Office Hour: 2:30pm – 4:30pm
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Eng3-335, czou@cs.ucf.edu, 407-823-5015
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Class webpage:
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http://www.cs.ucf.edu/~czou/CDA6938
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Why Am I Teaching This Course?
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Computer and Network Security is important
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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:
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If you plan to conduct security research related work
If you plan to conduct any research-related work
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Help you to learn basic steps in conducting research
How to: Read paper? Find hole in paper? Find topic to do?
Make presentation? Conduct collaborated research?
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A “Seminar” Course
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Focus on cybersecurity-related research
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Study research papers, publications
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Students must have active roles:
 Present papers in class
 Be active in class discussion, ask questions!
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Not an introductory class on computer security
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Count in your grade!
No lab experiments
No introduction on security appliance or cryptography
However, you are not required to have much knowledge of
computer security beforehand
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Prerequisite
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You must have knowledge of computer
networking!
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TCP/IP, packet, Internet (addr., DNS, routing…)
Basic knowledge on:
Probability (most research work uses this!)
 Software (stack, system call…)
 Operating system
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Class Grading Policy
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Class presentations:
20%
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Homework (paper review/summary):
10%
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In-class participation/discussion:
20%
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Final term project:
50%
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Two students as a group
Will use +/- grading system
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Topics Covered in Class
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Focus mainly on wired Internet security
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Internet worm, Internet security measurement
Honeypot, Spam, Denial-of-Service, Intrusion Detection
Network attack techniques
Host-based computer security
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Will also cover:
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Wireless security
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Software security, OS security
Sensor network security issues
Wireless LAN security
More papers to be added in the following two
weeks
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Term Project
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Two students form a group to do term
project together
A research oriented term project
 Project report follows the same format as a paper
for publish
 Learn how to conduct research and write paper
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Form the group and decide the title 6-8
weeks later
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Example of Term Project
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Simple:
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Middle:
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Survey of the state-of-art research work in a topic
Repeat and realize algorithm/experiments in a
published paper
Minor improvement of algorithms in published papers
Advanced:
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Present a novel idea with support from simulation or
real experiments
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E.g., success in using an idea from another area to a new topic in
computer security
Has potential to be developed as a published paper
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What I know and Do not know
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I know most research in Internet security
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Especially on Internet worm, botnet, modeling
I have some knowledge in:
Intrusion detection, software security
 Wireless security
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Hence the course will evolve as we go on
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I will also learn from this course
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Class Format
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Papers are grouped according to topics
As we move to a new topic, usually I will present a
brief introduction
In each class, two students present two papers
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Presentation: 25 min
Discussion: 10 min
My summary: 5 min (at the end if time allows)
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Point out what you do right, wrong
Help you improve your paper reading, presentation skill
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Next
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I will give two presentations in this week
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Objective:
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“Internet malware modeling and defense”
“Modeling and Measuring Botnet”
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 by
yourself
Come ready to ask questions and discuss
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Remember, class discussion counts 20% of grade!
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