Cyber Security with an Industrial Placement - MSc

This module aims to familiarise students with general concepts about privacy, privacy issues in selected application contexts of privacy enhancing technologies (e.g., Internet and web, mobile computing, online social networks, IoT), selected privacy enhancing technologies including data anonymisation (e.g., k-anonymity and differential privacy), anonymous communication (e.g., Tor), web and mobile privacy tools, and socio-technical related topics aspects of privacy (e.g., privacy behaviours, privacy policies, usability, and relevant legal issues).

This module investigates the whole process of information security management and associated activities including the concepts used and practices prescribed by relevant standards, such as those defined by ISO/IEC. A holistic view of information security management is taken, including risk management, the formulation of security policies, business continuity and resilience. Selected socio-technical topics that are important for information security management will also be covered. These shall include AAA (authentication, authorisation and accountability), important legal aspects especially data protection and privacy laws, data protection impact assessment, usability analysis and management, wider human factors in cyber security such as social engineering attacks and the importance of a positive cyber security culture for encouraging secure behaviours of employees and users.

The module will explore existing and emerging legal issues in cyber security, cybercrime, privacy and data protection, including the domestic and cross-boundary legal regulatory frames and their associated ethical dimensions. Topics covered include cybercrime, privacy and data protection, Internet and cyber surveillance, cross-border information flows, and legal structures. Students will be challenged to critically examine the ethics and management of cyber data. It will require students to assess emerging legal, regulatory, privacy and data protection issues raised by access to personal information.

Introduction, including a review of network techniques, switching and multiple access. High speed local area networks. Network protocols, including data link, network, transport and application layers and their security issues. Problems of network security and mechanisms used to provide security such as firewalls and network security protocols. Real time data transmission and quality of service. Naming and addressing and related security concerns. Security of IEEE 802.11 networks.

This module starts with the fundamental mathematical concepts to build cryptographic primitives. A key objective is to learn to implement the primitives without using programming libraries, learn the formal security notions and models for the primitives, and the use of the primitives in practical applications like blockchains.

The second part of the module covers the key application areas of authentication, authorisation and accountability (AAA). Included here are foundational topics of user and non-user authentication (including issues with password and biometric authentications), as well as access control and authorisation, along with matters related to accountability.

The project consists primarily of an extended period during which students undertake a substantial piece of work and a report on this in the form of a dissertation. It is usually preceded by an exploratory stage in which students review and summarise relevant literature or other technical background, and gain specific skills relevant to their project via a series of taught workshops. It may be permitted to undertake the work in groups, particularly for projects with a development focus. However, the dissertations are produced individually. The project examines the student's ability to research technical background, to understand and expand on a specific problem commensurate with their programme of study and relate it to other work, to carry out investigations and development (as appropriate), to describe results and draw conclusions from them, and to write a coherent and well organised dissertation demonstrating the student's individual reflection and achieved learning.

A synopsis of the curriculum:

• Network security and cybercrime.
• Analysis of real world network security incident (IoT botnet).
• Email security issues (spam and phishing attacks; spam filtering systems).
• Spyware (system vulnerabilities; stealth techniques; detection and removal).
• Network-related data security (data breaches; data loss prevention; remote sniffer detection).
• Security of WiFi networks.
• IoT network security
• Network forensics and incident response.
• Emerging network protocols
• IPv6 security.
• Honeypots and honeynets.
• Software-defined networking.

The module looks at a number of advanced topics in cyber security that are important for understanding, finding, researching and assessing security solutions. Example topics include:

• Digital steganography and watermarking, and its increasing role in modern malware;
• CAPTCHAs and other mechanisms to distinguish bots from humans remotely;
• AI in security, for example, the role of deep learning and adversarial examples in cyber security;
• Security in AI, for example, the protection of machine learning techniques against cyber threats;
• Random number generators and their relevance in password and nonce generation;
• Advanced malware threats such as ransomware, covering their evolution and providing some insights into likely future trends, including economic aspects.
• Advanced topics in research related to human factors and usable security, e.g., user behaviour and their relationship to cybercrime, positive security, user profiling and
• modelling;
• Quantum cyber security and the development of quantum-resistant cyber security systems based on quantum mechanics;
• Advanced topics in IoT security, covering new developments and trends, threats and mitigations.

The module focuses on teaching the foundations of language-based security including but not limited to the use of formal logics, type systems, process calculi and proof carrying code for reasoning about the security properties of programs.

This module will give students an overarching introduction to quantum information processing (QIP). At the end of the course the students will have a basic understanding of quantum computation, quantum communication, and quantum cryptography; as well as the implications to other fields such as computation, physics, and cybersecurity.

We will take a multi-disciplinary approach that will encourage and require students to engage in topics outside of their core discipline. The module will cover the most essential mathematical background required to understand QIP. This includes: linear algebra, basic elements of quantum theory (quantum states, evolution of closed quantum systems, Born's rule), and basic theory of computing. The module will introduce students to the following theoretical topics: quantum algorithms, quantum cryptography, quantum communication & information. The module will also address experimental quantum computation & cryptography.

This module will aim to familiarise students with core concepts (e.g. Locard's exchange principle, and legal admissibility of digital evidence) and best practices (e.g. the ACPO Good Practice Guide for Digital Evidence, Contemporaneous Notes taking, and the SWGDE guidelines) underpinning digital forensic investigations. It introduces methodologies that guide the digital investigative process (i.e., collection, interpretation, analysis and reporting), and key techniques that can be applied for interpretation and analysis of digital evidence in the context of digital forensics in general (e.g., hashing, and file carving), computer forensics (e.g., windows registry analysis and metadata analysis), and multimedia forensics (e.g., multimedia source analysis for device identification, and multimedia content analysis for forgery detection).

The module also discusses challenges faced by digital forensics due to the increasing volume and diversity of data sources involved in investigations.