02239 - Data Security, Autumn 2011.

Examination Projects

In this course, you must write a final report on a chosen topic instead of sitting an ordinary written exam. You can choose any one of the following tasks as the topic for your report. The report is individual. When you have chosen which task you want to do, send an e-mail with "02239 examination project" in the subject to both Christian D. Jensen and Sebastian A. Mödersheim, saying who you are (your name and student number) and which task you have chosen.

Your report must be handed in through Campusnet no later than Wednesday December 21th, 2011 at 15.00. Reports may also be sent by ordinary mail (addressed to one of the course teachers), in that case the post stamp should indicate that it has been sent no later than 21 december. Please hand in two copies of the report if you hand in by surface mail and don't forget that the examination regulations require you personally to sign your paper reports!

Rules

Your report is expected to be a full report on the topic you have chosen, including:

An introduction, explaining the aim and scope of the task.
A number of technical sections, describing your solution.
A conclusion, which summarises the main points and results.
A list of references.

If you wish to include extensive program documentation, reference material, test output or program source code, you are recommended to include it as an appendix.

Each project must present an independent solution to the chosen problem. Although you are encouraged to look on the Internet for relevant information, you must give a clear reference to the source of any material which you have not written yourself, which you actually include in your report.

Links have been provided for some of the project proposals. These links have been provided as a starting point and should not be considered an exhaustive list of relevant information.

Evaluation

The report will be evaluated by the course teachers. The grade is one overall mark, which incorporates both the final report (counts around 70%) and the mandatory lab. exercises (count 30%). Grades will be on the 7-scale.

Queries

There will be a general opportunity to ask questions about the report tasks before the oral course evaluation on Wednesday 30 November. If you have questions about specific tasks, you are advised to contact the teacher who set the task directly. The relevant teacher is indicated by his initials:

CDJ: Christian D. Jensen, room 013, B.322.
SAMO: Sebastian A. Mödersheim, room 120, B.322.

A. Security in Health-care Applications (CDJ)

Modern health-care functions make use of devices connected by wireless Communications, either based on one mobile telephony protocols, such as GSM, UMTS or LTE or wireless networking standards, such as the IEEE 802.11 series of protocols or on Bluetooth.

Examples of wireless communications in health-care are:

An apparatus for measuring blood-pressure and blood oxygen content for a single patient may be connected to a central computer (which may be connected to a central patient database) via a wireless network. The central computer can handle several such devices (on different patients) at the same time.
A health worker is visiting a patient at home may carry a hand-held computer (e.g., a PDA or similar), which via a wireless link can collect the patient's medical data, medication requirements and other information from a central database at the local health center.
Implanted sensors, medicine pumps or pacemakers are increasingly being equipped with wireless communication capabilities to allow them to communicate with health-care professionals. A few years ago, scientists demonstrated a deadly WiFi pacemaker hack which could give patients a jolt that might ultimately kill the patient. More recently, a vulnerability was discovered in an insulin pump, which would allow an attacker to control the pump and possibly administer a deadly dose of insulin to the patient.

Discuss the security requirements for such systems, bearing in mind the legal requirements for protection of personal information, and the security risks associated with the use of wireless networks. If time allows, you should make a proposal for how to avoid security problems in such systems.

B. Security in Intelligent Buildings (CDJ)

A number of technologies have been proposed for intelligent houses, which will allow heating, lighting, alarms and appliances to communicate with each other and provide a unified profile, e.g., lights are dimmed in the living room and off in the rest of the house when the family is watching TV together, at the same time the temperature is lowered a few degrees outside the living room. Identify general security issues that arise in intelligent houses focusing particularly on the information and communication technologies required to build intelligent houses, e.g., communication technology (wired or wireless), sensor technology, authentication (key management), etc.

Analyse the security issues identified above and identify threats and propose appropriate counter measures that can be implemented in the home environment. You may find inspiration in the scenarios defined below.

Links:
http://www.smart-house.dk/Index.php?country=UK&show=index&lang=UK&menu_val=1 (click on "Virtual Tour")
http://www.imm.dtu.dk/~cdj/SmartHouseWebSite/scenarios.html

C. Intrusion Resistance Evaluation (CDJ)

Make an investigation of a computer system to which you have access, with a view of investigating how resistant it is to intrusion by unauthorised persons. You should analyse as many aspects of intrusion as possible, including misuse of the password system, poor network security and openness to known exploits. You should make use of available methods of security analysis, including available tools for security evaluation.

Note: If you wish to do this project, you must obtain written permission from the managers of the system which you are evaluating. The following template (in Danish) has been approved by the legal department at DTU.

Declaration to be signed by students and system owners (Word, PDF).

D. Software Vulnerabilities (SAMO)

Make an investigation of software vulnerabilities, chosen from the CWE list discussed in the lecture.

An example could be to choose three vulnerabilities like SQL-Injection, Cross-Site Scripting and Cross-Site Request Forgery. However you may also choose just one or two vulnerabilities and go more into depth.

For each vulnerability you choose, your report should include:

a discussion of a practical example how to exploit the vulnerability. This can either be an attack reported in the media, or an experiment either on your own computer.
an investigation how it can be detected/identified at the attacked site, and
which counter measures exist.
an assessment of how critical the chosen vulnerabilities are, and how easy the countermeasures can be applied.

Do not copy-paste from other sources like Wikipedia or your collegues. Please write your own individual report.

E. Security Protocols (SAMO)

The AVISPA library is a collection of security protocols from various application areas such as classical authentication, mobility, and e-Commerce. For each protocol, there is a short description including a rough Alice-and-Bob-style message exchange, known attacks (if any), references to the protocol standard or research papers, as well as a formalization in AVISPA's own language HLPSL. Your task is to choose a handful of these protocols and make your own analysis of these protocols. For each chosen protocol, use the various resources (AVISPA library, standards, research papers) to find out what the protocol tries to achieve, how it does that, what it assumes, what the known weaknesses are, and what simplifications had to be made for formal analysis. You may make your own experiments using formal analysis tools like the AVISPA-platform or AnB/OFMC, but it is not strictly necessary.