650.050 (21S) Advanced Topics in Cybersecurity 1

Sommersemester 2021

Registration deadline has expired.

First course session
02.03.2021 14:00 - 16:00 online Off Campus
... no further dates known

Overview

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be necessary to make changes to courses and examinations at short notice (e.g. cancellation of attendance-based courses and switching to online examinations).

For further information regarding teaching on campus, please visit: https://www.aau.at/en/corona.
Lecturer
Course title german Advanced Topics in Cybersecurity 1
Type Lecture - Course (continuous assessment course )
Course model Online course
Hours per Week 4.0
ECTS credits 6.0
Registrations 8 (30 max.)
Organisational unit
Language of instruction English
Course begins on 02.03.2021
eLearning Go to Moodle course

Time and place

Please note that the currently displayed dates may be subject to change due to COVID-19 measures.
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Course Information

Intended learning outcomes

This course will help you to develop the following skills 

  • Understand the design of modern cryptographic primitives (including the atomic operations used to design them) and implement them. 
  • Identify the weak components of cryptographic functions. 
  • Develop cryptanalytic attacks (at least using the techniques taught in this course) and implement such attacks.
  • Comprehend and verify the threat of a cryptanalytic attack to a system. 

Teaching methodology including the use of eLearning tools

All the lectures of this course will be either online or pre-recorded. All learning materials including lecture-room link or pre-recorded lecture will be made available via moodle page of the course. 

Course content

Introduction: What is cryptanalysis ? A glimpse of historical cryptanalysis of old/electro-mechanical encryptions, What does modern cryptanalysis look like?

Mathematical background

  • A crash course on group, ring and field 
  • Introduction to finite fields of the form GF(2^n), Polynomial arithmetic 

Block cipher and Cryptanalysis

  • The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), The data encryption standard (DES)
  • Block cipher, Security of block cipher: Adversarial model (key-recovery, predictability and distinguishability)
  • Brute force cryptanalysis, Revisiting meet-in-the-middle attack on multiple encryption

Cryptanalysis of block cipher - 1

  • Introduction to differential cryptanalysis and linear cryptanalysis
  • Differential cryptanalysis of toy cipher and implementation of the cryptanalytic attack
  • Differential cryptanalysis of DES, Implementation of the attack on DES
  • Slide attack on iterative block cipher

Cryptanalysis of block cipher - 2

  • Lightweight (LW) block ciphers, Examples of LW ciphers
  • Description of  a lightweight block cipher (Klein)
  • Cryptanalytic attack on the cipher (Klein), Implementation of the attack

[Additional topics]

  • Examples of authenticated encryption scheme
  • Cryptanalytic attack on the Kindle cipher

Stream cipher and Cryptanalysis

  • Stream Ciphers, The mathematics behind stream cipher design: LFSR, NLFSR
  • Correlation attack, Algebraic attack
  • Description of the stream cipher RC4
  • Cryptanalysis of RC4, Attack on WEP
  • Security of WEP, WPA and WPA2

[Additional topics]

  • The A5/1, E0 (bluetooth) ciphers
  • Cryptanalysis of E0 cipher

Cryptanalysis of Hash function - 1

  • Hash function, Description of MD5, SHA1, SHA2
  • Differntial cryptanalysis of hash function
  • Attack on a hash function MD5, Implementation of the attack.

Cryptanalysis of Hash function - 2

  • Time-memory trade-off attacks: Hellman table, Rainbow table
  • Password hashing, Dictionary attack and rainbow table attack on password protected systems

[Additional topics]

  • Examples of other cryptanalytic methods for hash function

Cryptanalysis of Public-key Cryptographic Function

  • Crash course on finte field over primes
  • Cryptanalysis of DL, baby step giant step, pollard rho
  • Cryptanalysis of RSA

[additional topics]

  • Introduction to elliptic curve (EC),  EC cryptography: EC DH, EC digital signature
  • security of ECC,  ECC for DRM


Prior knowledge expected

To follow this course 

  • you must have attended the Introduction to Cybersecurity course , however this is not a strict requirement
  • you are expected to have the know of basic mathematics, probability theory and programming (C/Python), and a sense of logic and creativity.    

Examination information

Im Fall von online durchgeführten Prüfungen sind die Standards zu beachten, die die technischen Geräte der Studierenden erfüllen müssen, um an diesen Prüfungen teilnehmen zu können.

Grading scheme

Grade / Grade grading scheme

Position in the curriculum

  • Master's degree programme Applied Informatics (SKZ: 911, Version: 13W.1)
    • Subject: Information and System Security (Compulsory elective)
      • Ausgewählte Kapitel der Systemsicherheit ( 2.0h VK / 4.0 ECTS)
        • 650.050 Advanced Topics in Cybersecurity 1 (4.0h VC / 6.0 ECTS)
  • Master's degree programme Informatics (SKZ: 911, Version: 19W.2)
    • Subject: Information and System Security (Compulsory elective)
      • Weitere LVen aus dem gewählten Spezialisierungsfach ( 0.0h XX / 12.0 ECTS)
        • 650.050 Advanced Topics in Cybersecurity 1 (4.0h VC / 6.0 ECTS)
          Absolvierung im 1., 2. Semester empfohlen
  • Master's degree programme Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity (SKZ: 993, Version: 20W.1)
    • Subject: Specialisation in Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity (Compulsory elective)
      • 4.3 Advanced Topics in Cybersecurity 1 ( 0.0h VC / 6.0 ECTS)
        • 650.050 Advanced Topics in Cybersecurity 1 (4.0h VC / 6.0 ECTS)
          Absolvierung im 2., 3. Semester empfohlen

Equivalent courses for counting the examination attempts

This course is not assigned to a sequence of equivalent courses