14-850: Cybersecurity Research Seminar

14-850: Cybersecurity Research Seminar - Fall 2016

aka "The INSuRE Course"

Instructor: Patrick Tague
Email: tague [at] cmu [dot] edu
Office: B23 218
Phone: 650-335-2827
Skype: ptague

Logistics:

Class Meetings:
@Pittsburgh campus: Friday 1:30-3:20pm EDT, INI DEC
@SV campus: Friday 10:30am-12:20pm PDT, B23 211

Course Description:
Students will work on real-world cybersecurity research projects 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 results. Teams of students will work under mentorship of technical clients from government and industry on original research projects of current interest in the cybersecurity/information assurance field. The course will be synchronized with similar offerings at several partner schools, and many activities will be coordinated across schools via videoconference. The course will be open to advanced graduate and undergraduate students in technical disciplines related to computer science and engineering (e.g., CS, ECE, Information Systems, etc.) who have significant background in information, network, and software security; all students will be initially waitlisted until instructors have the chance to screen student qualifications.

Evaluation & Grading:
Grades will be determined based on multiple deliverables for the group project done in the course. Students will complete weekly progress dashboards to facilitate discussions with their project mentor and also provide five major deliverables (described in more detail below): (1) a written project "bid", (2) a statement of work (written and oral), (3) a written literature review, (4) a project progress update (written and oral), and (5) a final report (oral and written). Students will be individually evaluated on all project deliverables, and the instructor will include input from confidential peer evaluations in student evaluation. All five deliverables will contribute to the final grade as specified in the project details below.

Prerequisites:
(14741 or 18730) and 18731 and 14761
Contact the instructor directly with questions about prerequisites

Reading Material & Textbooks:
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.

Project Details and Deliverables:

Students will participate in a significant group project. During the semester, teams will give several presentations in class and prepare several written reports, in addition to weekly progres dashboards. Project details and deadlines are available here. All deliverables will be submitted via Blackboard - email submissions will NOT be accepted.

Daily Schedule:

Students should consult the daily schedule for a complete list of the topics covered, important dates, and events. Note that this daily schedule is tentative and can change at any time.

Policies, Ethics, etc.:

Students participating in the Cybersecurity Research Seminar are expected to follow various academic policies set forth by departments, colleges, and the university, as well as additional policies specific to this course. Please see this course's policy overview page for more details.