Introduction to Information Security Spring 2024
Introduction to Information Security is a graduate-level introductory course in information security. It teaches the basic concepts and principles of information security, and the fundamental approaches to secure computers and networks. Main topics include:
- Software and operating system security
- Cryptographic algorithms and protocols
- Web attacks and defenses
- Network threats and defenses
- Privacy, legal and ethical issues
- Digital forensics and malware
| Instructor | |
| TAs |
 Pranau Kumar  Yuting Tan  David Teng  Chase Lee  Sree Yedlapalli  Kumar Bhatnagar  Ishaan Guha  Daniel Goelzner  Sai Anoop Avunuri  Aishwarya Tapade  Brandon Villa  Samy Amer  Aditya Vidyadharan  Geoffrey Zhang  Bharat Raghunathan |
| TA for Policy Students |
 Sakshee Bapat |
| gtinfosec-staff@cc.gatech.edu is the mailing list to reach all staff. Please do not email us individually. | |
| Lectures |
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:00 PM–6:15 PM Scheller College of Business 100 |
| Office Hours | Slots for office hours are listed on the course calendar below. The calendar is on Eastern Standard Time, and you can also subscribe to it (on Google Calendar). Visit any slot for help with the course. However, Office Hours marked "Policy" are for MS Cybersecurity students in the Policy track. As such, they will be prioritized over other students during these slots. |
| Infrastructure | Ed Discussion will be used as the main communications medium for announcements. Our Canvas site contains the full syllabus and final grades for each assignment, and we'll also post announcements there. We'll use Gradescope to hold exams and projects that are rubric-based. Lastly, for projects and labs, we'll use our GitHub organization to distribute code and you will use the Autograder to submit your solutions. |
| Textbooks | The textbook is optional, but we recommend Computer Security: Principle and Practice, 4th Edition, by William Stallings and Lawrie Brown. We also recommend Security Engineering by Ross Anderson and Cryptography Engineering by Ferguson, Schneier, and Kohno. |
| Prerequisites | CS 2200 or ECE 3057 or ECE 3058 |
Grading
Below is a description of how we'll calculate grades:
| Quizzes | 5% | 10 true/false and multiple-choice quizzes. One quiz per week, 0.5% each. |
| Projects | 50% | Five projects, 10% each. MS Cybersecurity Policy track students: you can replace one project with a policy-oriented report. See Canvas for details. |
| Labs | 5% | Five labs, 1% each. |
| Exams | 40% | Two remote exams, each worth 20%. See the course schedule for exam dates. |
Course Policies
This is a short version. For the full list, please see Canvas.
| Ethics | We will be discussing attacks in this class, some of them quite nasty. None of this is in any way an invitation to undertake these attacks in any fashion other than with informed consent of all involved and affected parties. The existence of a security hole is no excuse. These issues concern not only professional ethics but also Georgia Tech policy and state and federal law. If there is any question in your mind about what conduct is allowable, contact the instructors first. |
| Honor Code | Georgia Tech aims to cultivate a community based on trust, academic integrity, and honor. Please see the Honor Code at the Policy Library. |
| Generative AI | We discourage the use of generative AI models, such as ChatGPT. Remember that ultimately you are responsible for all the content you submit. However, if you do decide to use them you must submit a statement explaining which and how such tools were used, including applicable prompts. |