14-742: Security in Networked Systems

Some of todays 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 network- and transport-layer attacks and defenses; network intrusion detection; denial of service (DoS) and distributed denial-of-service (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; content poisoning attacks; and advanced techniques for reacting to network attacks.

Students will complete a sequence of labs that provide hands-on experience with key networking and security technologies. Labs will be done individually. A few quizzes and exams will be included during the semester to evaluate mastery of important concepts; these are also done individually. Students will also participate as part of a team on a larger-scale course project.

Students will be individually evaluated on all course deliverables. Contributions to the final grade will be 35% for lab assignments, 10% for pre-class reading reviews, 30% for the group project, and 25% for quizzes and exams.

Labs: The first lab will familiarize you with the emulated network environment that we'll use throughout the course, and subsequent labs will be development-oriented; all labs are to be done individually.

• Lab 0 (due ~week 2): getting comfortable with the network emulator and development environment
• Lab 1 (due ~week 4): using raw socket programming to create low-level attack and defense primitives
• Lab 2 (due ~week 6): build a simple network application using previously created primitives
• Lab 3 (due ~week 9): using software-defined networking to configure switches, firewalls, and IDS
• Lab 4 (due ~week 11): attack and defense in an enterprise network scenario

Quizzes and Exams:A sequence of quizzes and exams will be used to gauge mastery of key concepts covered in the lecture and lab material.

Project: Students will self-organize into project teams and identify a topic of interest for extended study, development, and evaluation. A list of sample project topics will be provided, but students are encouraged to be creative in coming up with their own project topics. Multiple deliverables will be created throughout the semester.

• There are no official prereqs for this course, but students are expected to have background in information security (e.g., 14-741 / 18-330 / 15-441) and networking (e.g., 14-740 / 14-760).
• Students will need to be comfortable working in a Linux/Unix environment, writing small shell scripts, and writing more substantial programs in other languages (e.g., Java, Python, etc.)
• Contact the instructor directly with questions about prerequisites.