This course will discuss cybersecurity defensive measures and their application to protecting computing endpoints. The course will focus on studying, analyzing, and understanding vulnerabilities and threats along with the preventative and detective controls necessary to mitigate risk. Defensive endpoint-based controls will be explored and applied with hands-on exercises.

This course is designed to give students a foundation in the theories and practice relating to web application security. The course will introduce students to the concepts associated with deploying and securing a typical HTTP environment as well as defensive techniques they may employ.

The process and methodologies employed in negotiating a contract, performing a penetration test, and presenting the results will be examined and exercised. Students will be exposed to tools and techniques employed in penetration testing. Assignments will explore the difficulties and challenges in planning for and conducting an assessment exposing potential vulnerabilities. Students will develop a metric used to evaluate the security posture of a given network and will develop a coherent and comprehensive report of their findings to present to their client. Particular attention will be paid to the ramifications of the findings toward the security of the targets.

Students will gain experience and a better understanding of the application of technologies discussed in classes by working in the field of computing security. Students will be evaluated by their employer. If a transfer student, they must have completed one term in residence at RIT and be carrying a full academic load.

The importance of effective security policies and procedures coupled with experience and practice is emphasized and reinforced through research and practical assignments. Organization and management of security discipline and response to threats is studied. Case studies of effective and failed security planning and implementation will be examined and analyzed. The issues influencing proper and appropriate planning for security and response to attacks will be studied.

This course is one of the capstone options in the MS in Computing Security program. It offers students the opportunity to investigate a selected topic and make an original contribution which extends knowledge within the computing security domain. Students must submit an acceptable proposal to a thesis committee (chair, reader, and observer) before they may be registered by the department for the MS Thesis. Students must defend their work in an open thesis defense and complete a written report of their work before a pass/fail grade is awarded. As part of their original work, students are expected to write and submit an article for publication in a peer reviewed journal or conference.