CS591-004  Cybersecurity: A Theoretical Approach

                                        
Instructor: Jared Saia (saia@cs.unm.edu)

Text: 

- "Lectures on Data Security : Modern Cryptology in Theory and
   Practice" (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) by Ivan Damgard
   (Editor)

- We will also make use of many classical papers on theoretical
  aspects of security - most of these will be non-cryptographic in
  that they assume a computationally-unbounded adversary (i.e. they
  are more paranoid than standard work in cryptography)
 
Prerequisite:

To take this class, you should have already taken (and done well in)
CS561 and CS530 or equivalents.

Description:

This will be a 3 hour, graduate class focusing on the theory of
cybersecurity.  We will focus on proactive security i.e. designing
networks, algorithms and data structures which are provably robust to
attack.  Grades will be based on class participation, a class project
and presentation, homeworks and a final.
 
Topics will include the following:
 
- Cryptography: 
  - Committment Schemes and Zero-Knowledge Protocols
  - Unconditional Security in Cryptography
  - Quantum Cryptography

- Secret Sharing: How to partition up shares of a secret among a set
  of players so that the secret can only be recovered from the set of
  all the shares

- Byzantine Agreement and Leader Election: How to come to consensus
  and elect a leader in a network which has been attacked

- Secure Multi-party Computation: How to compute an arbitrary function
  in a network which has been attacked

- Attack-Resistant Networks: How to design a network which continues
  to function even under attack

- Game Theory: Designing mechanisms which are robust to attack by
  selfish coalitions