All assessments, including assignments and the final exam, must be undertaken at the time indicated in the unit guide. Should these activities be missed due to illness or misadventure, students may apply for Special Consideration.

All written assessments must be submitted by 11:55 pm on the due date. A 1-hour grace period is allowed to accommodate unexpected technical difficulties.

Requirements to Pass this Unit

To successfully complete this unit, students must:

• Attempt all assessments, and

• Achieve a total mark of 50% or higher across all tasks

Late Assessment Submission and Penalties

Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, a 5% penalty (of the total possible mark of the task) will be applied for each day a written report or presentation assessment is not submitted, up until the 7^th day (including weekends). After the 7^th day, a grade of ‘0’ will be awarded even if the assessment is submitted. The submission time for all uploaded assessments is 11:55 pm. A 1-hour grace period will be provided to students who experience a technical concern.

For any late submission of time-sensitive tasks, such as scheduled tests/exams, performance assessments/presentations, and/or scheduled practical assessments/labs, please apply for Special Consideration.

Assessments where Late Submissions will be accepted 

• Assignment 1, Group Project, and Final examination - NO, unless Special Consideration is Granted 

SPECIAL CONSIDERATION

The Special Consideration Policy aims to support students who have been impacted by short-term circumstances or events that are serious, unavoidable and significantly disruptive, and which may affect their performance in assessment. If you experience circumstances or events that affect your ability to complete the assessments in this unit on time, please inform the convenor and submit a Special Consideration request through ask.mq.edu.au.

For any late submission of time-sensitive tasks, such as scheduled tests/exams, performance assessments/presentations, and/or scheduled practical assessments/labs, please apply for Special Consideration. For example, if the assignment is worth 8 marks (of the entire unit) and your submission is late by 19 hours (or 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds), 0.4 marks (5% of 8 marks) will be deducted. If your submission is late by 24 hours (or 47 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds), 0.8 marks (10% of 8 marks) will be deducted, and so on.

ASSESSMENT TASKS

Final Exam

Assessment Type: Examination

Indicative Time on Task: 10 hours

Due: S2 Exam Period

Weighting: 45%

Cumulative assessment of all content taught in the unit. On successful completion, you will be able to:

• Analyse key security requirements and trends in a distributed networked computing setting
• Evaluate security services such as authentication and access control in distributed systems and networks
• Analyse the security threats and develop security architecture and functionalities to counteract the security threats
• Apply (network) security techniques and mechanisms to develop (network) security protocols
• Develop and advance skills of research and critical analysis in a manner consistent with the completion of a postgraduate degree

Assignment 1

Assessment Type: Problem set

Indicative Time on Task: 35 hours

Release: Before 23:55 Friday, Ending Week 1 

Due: 23:55 Friday, Ending Week 6 

Weighting: 25%

Assignment on Security Mechanisms and Protocols. On successful completion, you will be able to:

• Analyse key security requirements and trends in a distributed networked computing settings
• Evaluate security services such as authentication and access control in distributed systems and networks
• Analyse the security threats and develop security architecture and functionalities to counteract the security threats
• Apply (network) security techniques and mechanisms to develop (network) security protocols

Assignment 2

Assessment Type: Group Project

Indicative Time on Task: 45 hours

Release: Before 23:55 Friday, Ending Week 6 

Due: 23:55 Friday, Ending Week 12 

Weighting: 30%

On successful completion, you will be able to:

• Analyse key security requirements and trends in a distributed networked computing settings
• Evaluate security services such as authentication and access control in distributed systems and networks
• Analyse the security threats and develop security architecture and functionalities to counteract the security threats
• Apply (network) security techniques and mechanisms to develop (network) security protocols
• Develop and advance skills of research and critical analysis in a manner consistent with the completion of a postgraduate degree.
• Demonstrate effective written and verbal communication skills to communicate technical ideas

METHOD OF COMMUNICATION

This unit makes use of discussion boards hosted within iLearn. Please post questions there; they are monitored by the staff on the unit. Alternatively, the staff can be reached out to via their university email addresses given on the iLearn page for this unit.

COMPUTING FACILITIES 

Please note that this is a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) unit. You will be expected to bring your own laptop computer (Windows, Mac or Linux), install and configure the required software.

CLASSES AND TUTORIALS 

All classes (lectures and workshops) take place on campus. Each week, students will attend a 3-hour lecture and a 1-hour workshop (or tutorial). Tutorials begin in Week 1. Students should complete any assigned readings and review the lecture slides to prepare for the lecture. Lecture slides and tutorial materials will be uploaded to COMP8260’s iLearn page by 9:00 am on Mondays. Students are expected to engage with the lecture slides and tutorial material to interact with their lecturers and tutors effectively. During lectures and tutorials, students can ask questions related to the content, hands-on exercises, and take-home assignments.

METHOD OF COMMUNICATION

This unit makes use of discussion boards hosted within iLearn. Please post questions there; they are monitored by the staff on the unit. Alternatively, the staff can be reached out to via their university email addresses given on the iLearn page for this unit.

REQUIRED AND RECOMMENDED TEXTS AND/OR MATERIALS 

This material for this unit is in part based on the following textbooks:

• William Stallings, Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and Practices, Prentice Hall (4th Edition) · Charles Pfleeger, Security in Computing, Prentice Hall, 20026 (4th Edition)
• Charlie Kaufman, Radia Perlman and Mike Speciner, Network Security: Private Communication in a Public World, Prentice Hall • Dieter Gollman, Computer Security, John Wiley
• Simson Garfinkel and Gene Spafford, Practical Unix Security, O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.
• Trusted Computing Platforms: TCPA Technology in Context, Ed: Siani Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2003
• Ross Anderson, Security Engineering, John Wiley, 1st or 2nd Edition

TECHNOLOGY USED AND REQUIRED 

iLearn

iLearn is a Learning Management System that gives you access to lecture slides, lecture recordings, forums, assessment tasks, instructions for practicals, discussion forums, and other resources.

Echo 360

Digital recordings of lectures are available. Read these instructions for details.

Technology Used

PacketTracer, Anaconda, Jupyter Notebook with Python.

Week	Topic
1	Introduction: Cyber Security Trends and Concepts
3	Threat Models and Security Goals
2	Cryptography, Cryptographic and Security Protocols
4	Authentication and Access Control
5	Web Security
6	Internet Security Protocol
7	Distributed Systems Security: BGP Security
8	Cloud Computing Security
9	Distributed Denial of Service Attacks and Defences
10	Mobile Platform Security Architecture
11	Anonymity and Censorship Techniques
12	Group Project Presentations
13	Revision