CS 8803B Computer Systems SecurityFall 1999

Instructor:  Mustaque Ahamad
Office Hours: MW 1-2pm or by appointment.

Teaching Assistant: Kehe Hou (khhou@cc)

Room and time: Room 52, College of Computing Building,  MWF 11:05-11:55am
 

In our connected world, secure access to information managed by computers has become increasingly important. Operating systems play a fundamental role is protecting both information and other resources in computer systems. This course will focus on the operating system level mechanisms and security policies that can be deployed to build secure or trusted  systems. The course will address the key problems of authentication and authorization. It will also address security kernels as well as trojan horses and covert channels. Because of the ubiquity of distributed computing systems, authentication and access control in such systems will also be addressed.

Many of the course topics will cover material from research papers. We will also use Morrie Gasser's book on building secure computer systems. This book will be available from  the reserve desk in the library.

Week 1:  The why, what and how of secure computing systems.
 
         Why?
Trust in Cyberspace
The inevitability of failure: The flawed assumption of security in modern computing systems
What?
Chapter 1 of Gasser book.  The Orange Book
How?
Road map of the course.
Week 2: Design principles of secure systems
 The protection of information in computer systems
Week 3: Authentication
 
Passwords, pin protected cards, one time passwords, biometrics etc.

Password Security: A Case History

The S/Key One-time Password System
 

Weeks 4-7: Access control and authorization
 
Discretionary access control
Access control lists (ACLs) and capabilities
Implementation of access control (Multics, Unix, Java)
Capabilities in Hydra, confinement and revocation.
Protection

Going Beyond the Sanbox: New Security Architectures in JDK 1.2

 Multics Home Page
 

Mandatory access control
Bell and  La Padula Model
 Bell and La Padula Report -- Secure Computer Systems
 OS Mechanisms for supporting MAC polciies
 Providing Policy Control Over Object Operations in a Mach Based System
Clark-Wilson and Chinese Wall security policies
Week 8-9: Trojan horses and covert channels

                                     A note on the confinement problem
                                      NCSC Guide to Understanding Covert Channel Analysis

Weeks 10: Security kernels

                    Chapter  10 of Gasser's book.

 
Week 11: Security models,  Formal specification & verification and assurance

                   Chapters 9 and 12 of Gasser's book.

                  Proof carrying code (PCC)

Weeks 12-14: Distributed Systems Security

 
  Authentication for Distributed Systems

A Global Authentication Service without Global Trust

Week 15:  Miscellaneous Topics
 
 Introduction to Intrusion Detection

High level protocols  (Secure Electronic Transactions (SET))

Two exams (midterm and final) will be 50% of the total course grade. The rest of the credit will be given for homeworks and projects. Since an operating systems course is a prerequisite for this course, students are expected to have good systems programming skills. Linux and Java will be used as the platforms for the projects that are planned for the course.
 

Homeworks and Projects

 Homework I -- Due Date: October 1, 1999

 Project I -- Due Date: 10/27/99

 Homework II, Due Date: November 22, 1999

 Project II -- Due Date: December 10, 1999