CS 660: Advanced Information Assurance
Spring 2011

Tuesdays & Thursdays, 11:15am–12:30pm
LGRC A310

This graduate-level course (which is also part of the information assurance undergraduate track) covers key concepts in information assurance (IA) via cutting-edge and seminal research papers. The course's two goals are (1) to prepare students to conduct successful, publishable research in security and privacy and (2) to teach students how to build stronger systems by thinking like attackers. Topics include threat modeling, risk assessment, famous missteps, the economics of security, web security. Students will be evaluated based on three homeworks, five standalone in-class tests, a final project, and class participation including leading at least one discussion of a research paper.

Instructor: Ben Ransford, CS 226. Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 12:30pm–1:30pm or by appointment.

Schedule

This schedule is subject to change. Unofficial schedule in iCal format for use with Google Calendar, iCal, or other calendar software: iCal-format calendar URL.

Date	Topics	Reading & Notes	Deliverable(s)
1/18	Intro	“Information assurance” on Wikipedia
1/20	How to read a paper	John Ousterhout on reviewing papers Chip and PIN is Broken (Murdoch, Oakland 2010).
1/25	From bug to vulnerability	DieHarder: Securing the Heap (Novark and Berger, CCS 2010) Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit (Aleph One, Phrack 49)	Response to Novark
1/27	How not to run malicious code	Native Client: A Sandbox for Portable, Untrusted x86 Native Code (Yee, Oakland 2009) (Video) A Secure Environment for Untrusted Helper Applications (Goldberg, USENIX Security 1996).	Test #1 at beginning of class Response to Yee
2/1	Finding security problems; course project	EXE: Automatically Generating Inputs of Death (Cadar, CCS 2006) Inspector Gadget: Automated Extraction of Proprietary Gadgets from Malware Binaries (Kolbitsch, Oakland 2010)	Project ideas Response to Cadar
2/3	Fuzz Testing	Automated Penetration Testing with White-Box Fuzzing Black Box Security Testing Tools Automated Whitebox Fuzz Testing (Godefroid, NDSS 2008)	Response to Godefroid
2/8	Web Security	Securing Frame Communication in Browsers (Barth, USENIX Security 2008) Dos and don'ts of client authentication on the web (Fu, USENIX Security 2001)	Response to Barth
2/10	Network Security	The Case for Ubiquitous Transport-Layer Encryption (Bittau, USENIX Security 2010) Vulnerable compliance (Geer, USENIX `;login:`, December 2010—via SPARK) Intercepting Mobile Communications: The Insecurity of 802.11 (Borisov, Mobicom 2001)	Response to Bittau
2/15	Network Security	Improving Wireless Privacy with an Identifier-Free Link Layer Protocol (Greenstein, MobiSys 2008)	Project proposal
2/17	Anonymity	Tor: The Second-Generation Onion Router (Dingledine, USENIX Security 2004) The Sybil Attack (Douceur, IPTPS 2002)	Homework #1
2/22	No class (virtual Monday)
2/24	Side-Channel Attacks	Optical Time-Domain Eavesdropping Risks on CRT Displays (Kuhn, Oakland 2002)	Test #2 at beginning of class
3/1		Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired and Wireless Keyboards (Vuagnoux, USENIX Security 2009)	Response to Vuagnoux
3/3		Remote Physical Device Fingerprinting (Kohno, Oakland 2005) Lang Lin (ECE) guest lecture (slides)	Response to Kohno
3/8	P2P Privacy	Brian Levine lectures Vanish: Increasing Data Privacy with Self-Destructing Data (Geambasu, USENIX Security 2009) Defeating Vanish with Low-Cost Sybil Attacks Against Large DHTs (Wolchok, NDSS 2010)	Response to Geambasu
3/10	P2P Privacy	Brian Levine lectures Privacy-preserving P2P data sharing with OneSwarm (Isdal, SIGCOMM 2010)	Response to Isdal
3/15	No class (spring break)
3/17	No class (spring break)
3/22	Trust	Overcoming an Untrusted Computing Base: Detecting and Removing Malicious Hardware Automatically (Hicks, Oakland 2010). IEEE Cipher scribe notes (scroll to Paper #9); Hicks's slides. Defeating UCI: Building Stealthy and Malicious Hardware (Sturton, Oakland 2011)	Response to Sturton
3/24	Required: Go to Sam King lecture instead		Mid-semester project report
3/29	Trust, cont'd.	Bootstrapping Trust in Commodity Computers (Parno, Oakland 2010). IEEE Cipher scribe notes (scroll to Paper #25); Parno's slides. SPATE: Small-group PKI-less Authenticated Trust Establishment (Lin, MobiSys 2009)	Test #3 at beginning of class Response to Parno
3/31	Language-Based Security	Joe-E: A Security-Oriented Subset of Java (Wagner, NDSS 2010) Fabric: A Platform for Secure Distributed Computation and Storage (Liu, SOSP 2009)	Response to Liu
4/5	Real-World System Security	RFID Security and Privacy: A Research Survey (Juels, JSAC Feb. 2006) EPC RFID Tags in Security Applications: Passport Cards, Enhanced Drivers Licenses, and Beyond (Koscher, CCS 2009)	Homework #2
4/7		Security and Privacy Vulnerabilities of In-Car Wireless Networks: A Tire Pressure Monitoring System Case Study (Rouf, USENIX Security 2010) Experimental Security Analysis of a Modern Automobile (Koscher, Oakland 2010)	Response to Rouf
4/12		Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys (Halderman, USENIX Security 2008) Pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators: Software radio attacks and zero-power defenses (Halperin, Oakland 2008)	Response to Halderman
4/14	Usability and Security	Password security: a case history (Morris, CACM Nov. 1979) Why Johnny Can't Encrypt (Whitten, USENIX Security 1999)	Test #4 at beginning of class Response to Whitten
4/19	Usability and Security	How Good are Humans at Solving CAPTCHAs? A Large Scale Evaluation (Bursztein, Oakland 2010). Slides. Folk Models of Home Computer Security (Wash, SOUPS 2010)	Homework #3
4/21	Economics of Security	Economics and Internet Security: a Survey of Recent Analytical, Empirical and Behavioral Research (Moore, Harvard CS TR-03-11)	Respond to Moore
4/26	Forensics	(Walls, USENIX Security 2011) (link sent via email) Dispatcher: Enabling Active Botnet Infiltration using Automatic Protocol Reverse-Engineering (Caballero, CCS 2009)	Summary of final project results
4/28	Required: go to Gary McGraw's talk instead (room CS151, 11:30am–12:30pm). Slides (via Google).
5/3	Hot Topics in Privacy; Wrapup	A Firm Foundation for Private Data Analysis (Dwork, CACM Jan. 2011)	Test #5
5/4	(No class)		Final project report

Resources

Security Engineering by Ross Anderson: first edition free online
Principles of Computer System Design by Saltzer and Kaashoek, Chapter 11
RISKS
Schneier blog
How to Have Your Abstract Rejected by Mary-Claire van Leunen and Richard Lipton
How to write a good paper by Simon Peyton-Jones
Early Computer Security papers collected by NIST

CS 660: Advanced Information Assurance Spring 2011

Schedule

Resources

CS 660: Advanced Information Assurance
Spring 2011