14-850: INSuRE Cybersecurity Research

This course engages students in real-world cybersecurity and information systems security problems of interest to government organizations and industry partners. Students will learn how to apply research techniques, think clearly about problems and constraints, formulate and analyze potential solutions, evaluate solutions through simulation and experimentation, and communicate their results effectively. Working in small groups under the mentorship of technical clients from government and industry, teams of students will formulate, carry out, and present original research on current cybersecurity/information assurance problems of interest. Project topics come from lists supplied by government and industry partners. The course will be synchronized with similar offerings at several partner schools via videoconference, using resources provided through the INSuRE program. The course will be open to graduate students in computer science and engineering (e.g., INI, CS, ECE, Information Systems, etc.) who have background in information security / information assurance and have significant expertise in at least one relevant technical area. All students will be initially waitlisted for the course until instructors have the chance to verify student qualifications beyond the basic prerequisites.

Grades will be determined based on multiple deliverables for the group project done in the course as well as individual effort toward in-class presentations and activities. Individual students will prepare bids for their desired problem areas, and project teams will work toward several major deliverables, including a project proposal, progress report, progress presentation, final report, project poster, and final presentation. Students will be individually evaluated on all project deliverables as well as all individual work done in and out of class.

14741 or 18730; instructor approval

Contact the instructor directly with questions about prerequisites

We will not use any specific textbook, though some could be made available for background reading purposes. Project groups will rely primarily on research papers, some of which will be provided by the project's technical lead and others of which will be found by the students.

Teams of students will work on a collaborative project for the duration of the semester. Teams will be formed based on project bids. Through the semester, teams will give two formal project presentations and submit two written reports.

In addition to the team deliverables, each student will be responsible for preparing two peer reviews, which will be due along with the progress and final reports.