CS 485

Course Title: Computers Security

Credits: 3

Instructor: Mukesh Singhal, Professor and Endowed Chair.

Tel: 257-3062.

E-mail: singhal@cs.uky.edu.

Office: Room 234 Hardymon Bldg.

Office Hours: 2-3pm TR (or by appointment).

Course Description

The following topics will be covered in roughly the given order.

1.Introduction: what is the problem?
2.Encryption (types of attacks, uses of secret-key and public-key cryptography, uses of hash algorithms)
3.Algorithms (secret key: DES, IDEA, Rijndael, CBC, CFB, OFB, CFB; hashing: MD5, SHS; public-key: RSA, DSS)
4.Authentication (key distribution, passwords, addresses, cryptographic, certificates, nonces, Kerberos)
5.Pitfalls (security handshake attacks, performance problems)
6.Electronic mail (establishing keys, privacy, source authentication, message integrity, non-repudiation, PEM, PGP, X.400)
7.Public-key infrastructure (PKI)
8.Malware (viruses, worms, Trojan horses, service attacks, distributed denial-of-service, rootshell, repositories)
9.Security in WWW
10.Legal, social and ethical issues (key escrow, export rules)

Prerequisites

CS 315, a course in operating systems, basic understanding of networks, some mathematical sophistication or the consent of instructor.

Examinations

There will be one in-class, midterm examination during the semester and a two-hour final examination. The date of the mid-term is November 1, 2007 (Thursday).

Grading

A student's grade will be determined by a weighted average of homework assignments, mid-term examination, and the final examination. (Grading of homeworks is conditional on the availability of a grader for the course. In case homeworks can not be graded, each student will write a report on a topic in networks security which will be graded.)

Homework or report writing assignment: 30%
Midterm: 30%
Final Examination: 40%

Letter Grades: top 40% will get As, next 50% will get Bs, and the rest 10% will get Cs and Ds.

Textbook

William Stallings
Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and Practices
Pearson-Prentice-Hall, 4th edition.

Papers from the literature