I reserve my right to award some bonus points based on your outstanding performance and/or as an award to the winners of the competition, in which you will be encouraged to participate.

Undergraduate students may include research component in their curriculum and assessment. Upon confirmation, their assessment will be based on the same scale as applied for graduate students.

Topical  research

This assessment component includes undertaking some research on a particular topic assigned. A student (or a group) will have to write a short summary (1 page), prepare a research paper and give a presentation to the class. The details could be discussed individually.

For this assignment the main assessment component will be producing a research paper (10-12 pages). It should be submitted by week 9 in an electronic format (doc or pdf file). The paper should be presented to the class (15-20 min presentation) as scheduled during weeks 9-10. A short summary stating your research topic and your research plan should be submitted electronically by week 4.

Your research could be combined with your project. In this case your course project will be formulated and assessed individually.

Your research paper could be based on either of the following:

1.      Research literature search, analysis and synthesis of some conclusion. Here you have to find at least 3 papers investigating a particular research problem in your topic (try to find the papers on the SAME problem, however, they might offer different methods, solutions and results), study them, analyze them and produce your conclusion.

2.      Software tools search, analysis, testing and comparison. Here you have to find at least 5 software products available for download (not different versions of the same product), study them, compare their characteristics and produce your recommendations (positive and negative) on those products use and applications

3.      Combination of points 1 and 2: e.g. a review paper and a few software products.

4.      Educational research: to be discussed individually

5. Practical project with a strong research component

Suggested research directions:

1. Computer system and network security modeling with intelligent methodologies: fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms possible modeling aspects: survivability, recovery after attack, missions : review of the modeling methods and software tools

2. Network intrusion detection systems based on anomaly detection: review of the literature and methods

3. Network intrusion detection systems based on misuse detection: review of the literature and methods

4. Email spam protection: review of the methods and software

5. Spam Assissin software: study and modification

6. Computer Network Survivability Metrics

7. Intrusion detection using sequences of network system calls: literature review

8. Intrusion detection using sequences of network system calls: system development based on DARPA model

9. Software Environment Sensors in Computer Networks

10. Fuzzy models in computer security measurement

11. Integration of expert systems and neural networks to analyze the current demand for resources in a computer network system

12. Software products applied for evaluation of computer network security (pick up some division): comparison analysis
13. Software products applied for enhancing security in computer networks (pick up some division)
14. Sensor networks: features and realization
15. Sensor networks: performance improvement
16. Sensor networks: security enhancement
17. Network security audit and testing: testing methodology
18. Network security audit and testing: software tools
19. Network security vulnerability analysis
20. Typical attacks in network security testing