Communications and Network Security

This course seeks to familiarise students the bits-in-transit aspect of network security and to introduce them to basic principles of cyber security defense. Upon successful completion of the course, the students will be able to:

• Elicit security requirements of computer networks
• Identify security wise erroneous or poorly configured networks and how they can be penetrated
• Design and maintain secure computer networks
• Understand how to protect networks against intrusions and denial of service attacks
• Apply his/her knowledge to protect devices and data in-transmit from malicious actions
• Use best practices and current tools to analyze network traffic and study attacks

Basic principles of Cryptography. Data confidentiality and integrity. Identity Authentication. Reflection and Man-in-the-middle attacks. Key agreement and distribution. Kerberos protocol. Wireless security and the security protocols WPA/WPA2. Mobile network security GSM/UMTS/LTE. Threat modeling on TCP/IP layer. Analysis of TLS/SSL protocol. Analysis of Pretty Good Privacy mechanisms. Analysis and evaluation of Firewalls and Virtual Private Networks. Intrusions detection systems in networks. Denial of service attacks and mitigations. Domain Name Server (DNS) and Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) attacks. Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies.

• Γκρίτζαλης Σ. & Κάτσικας Σ. & Γκρίτζαλης Δ. (2003): Ασφάλεια Δικτύων Υπολογιστών: Τεχνολογίες και Υπηρεσίες σε Περιβάλλοντα Ηλεκτρονικού Επιχειρείν και Ηλεκτρονικής Διακυβέρνησης, Εκδόσεις Παπασωτηρίου.
• William Stallings (2016), Network Security Essentials: Applications and Standards, 6th Edition