"Innovative Security" class recognized at national colloquium

When students compete, everyone learns more. That’s the idea behind Assistant Professor Guevara Noubir’s interactive Network Security course, which was one of only two innovative educational initiatives recognized at the annual Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education (NCISSE) for its approach to security curriculum development.

NCISSE is an international conference whose attendees include the sixty universities, including Northeastern, that have been named Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education by the National Security Agency. The conference was established to encouragecollaboration among government, industry, and academia to strengthen and expand information security education.

Noubir’s fourteen-week course teaches graduate students the fundamentals of network security and culminates with a two-day competition that pits student teams against one another to see who can create the most hacker-resistant network.

“When students compete against each other, they are more motivated to CUL TY check each other’s work carefully in order to defeat the opponents,” Noubir says.

The course competition is modeled after similar contests held by a number of security groups, ranging from national professional organizations to Northeastern’s own Crew (the volunteer systems group). What sets the course apart is the high level of instruction students get before the competition begins.

In lab assignments throughout the semester, students set up servers and try to institute known attacks or protect their networks against them. They complete mathematics-based homework assignments to better understand the theoretical underpinnings of security Guevara Noubir instant messaging program that will become part of the network they protect during the competition.

After the NCISSE presentation, eleven universities contacted Noubir to request course materials. The response has been so strong that Noubir is planning to set up a Web site where registered instructors can download new laboratory assignments and share their experiences.

Noubir also plans a series of improvements to the popular course. For instance, students last year didn’t compete until the final week of class. This year, they will get a not-for-credit trial run during the tenth week so that everyone better understands the demands of the contest environment. Noubir will also require students to post their code by the tenth week so that the teams have adequate time to analyze one another’s work for strengths and weaknesses.

“They missed things because they didn’t have enough time with it,” he says. “I don’t want that to happen.”

Noubir hopes to institute an undergraduate version of the course this year. “Competition is motivating. I think it will be good for undergraduate students to know that they can participate in this kind of competition.”