CS528 - Network Security

Spring 2018, 3-credit course

Course Number:CS 52800
Instructor: Aniket Kate
Teaching Assistants:Duc V Le
Donghang Lu
Timeslot:Tuesday/Thursday 4:30-5:45 pm
Place: LWSN B134
Discussions : Piazza Webpage (Signup please)


Course Objectives

The course focuses on the principles and foundations of building secure network systems and on security and privacy challenges in existing and emerging networks. The course compares and analyzes network architectures and network protocols from the physical layer to the access control, network, transport and application layer from an adversarial standpoint to understand how to build more secure protocols that can withstand attacks.

This course is part of the Professional MS in Information Security program in the Computer Science department.


Prerequisite and Registration

Successful completion of CS 52600 required, or equivalent course with the consent of instructor required. Significant programming expertise and knowledge of computer networks is required to complete the projects.

Interested students, who have not taken CS 52600 or an equivalent course, are suggested to email the instructor to get pointers towards preparing themselves for the course.


Course Overview

This course will cover the following topics associated with network security (and privacy):
  • TLS/SSL Security
  • Web Security and HTTPS
  • Internet Protocol Security (IPSec)
  • Secure Shell (SSH), and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
  • DNS Security and Privacy
  • Secure BGP and RPKI
  • Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) and Wireless Security
  • Anonymous Communication Networks (such as Tor)
  • Censorship Circumvention
  • PKI, Webs of trust, and Certificate Transparency
  • P2P Communication (such as Bittorrent) and Payments (such as Bitcoin)
  • Social Networks
  • Software-defined Networking (SDN) Security
  • Email Security

Course Projects

There will be 3 or 4 course labs with increasing levels of understanding and programming difficulty.

Grading Criteria

TaskPercentage (tentative)
Final Exam30%
Mid-term Exam15%
Labs and Assignments40%
Course Projects10%
Class Participation5%

Course Policies

We will employ Purdue's standard strong academic policies for the course. Please refer to the academic policies page maintained by Professor Gene Spafford for more details. Other course specific rules are as follows:

Assignment and Project Due Dates

All assignments are due on the dates and times specified. It is the responsibility of the students to manage their time so that the assignments can be submitted before the deadline. Every student gets three bonus days (in total) for his/her assignments and projects. He/she can employ those days to submit their assignments late as long as his/her semester-wide quota of three days does not exceed. Late assignments (other than this concession) will not be graded.

Discussion group:

Questions/comments should be posted on the discussion forum on Piazza. Make sure that you check the discussion group and your Purdue e-mail frequently (at least once per day). Please do NOT post answers to the assignments, though posting general clarifications is fine.

Complaints about the assignments or the class should NOT be posted to the group-- instead, they should be e-mailed to the instructor. Please be patient and courteous. Please ensure that the tone of your messages is respectful and the language used is appropriate.

In general, any case of academic dishonesty will be dealt with by a severe grade penalty in the overall class grade and referral to the office of the Dean of Students.

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Copyright © 2015-18 Aniket Kate, Purdue University.