UMUC-EUROPE GRADUATE PROGRAMS
BOWIE STATE UNIVERSITY

INSS635 Syllabus

Course Title Information Systems Security
Term TERM 2, 2004/2005
Education Center ALCONBURY-GRAD
Faculty Member Carl A Scharpf - cascharpf@faculty.ed.umuc.edu

Faculty Contact Information:

Phone: 07963 364430

Consultation:

Before and after class time and by appointment.

Feel free to email me at any time (see address above).

Required Texts and Readings:

Whitman, M.and Mattord, J.  (2003).  Principles of Information Security.  Boston, MA:  Thompson - Course Technology.

Supplementary Readings:

The standard for papers in the graduate program is the APA style. All participants in this course and all graduate INSS, MGMT, PUAD, and ECON courses should have a copy of the style guide:
American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition. Washington DC: Author.All graduate students should be prepared to utilize the UMUC online library at http://www.umuc.edu/library/.  The library contains a large number of full text academic journals that are free of charge and immediately available.  The library homepage also contains a number of links related to improving students' research and writing skills.

Recommended Journals:

Publications of the various professional societies (such as ACM -- the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE Computing Society, and the various management professional societies) are strongly recommended.  In addition, there are many trade journals (such as eWEEK) that MIS professionals should become familiar with, many of these being published both weekly and on-line.

Course Description:

3 semester hours credit.  Prerequisites: Either INSS 510, INSS 520, INSS 530,  or permission of the Program Director.  Explores security policies, models, and mechanics for secrecy, integrity, and availability.  Topics include operating systems models and mechanisms for mandatory and discretionary controls;  data models, concepts, and mechanisms for database security;  basic cryptography and its applications;  security in computer networks and distributed systems;  as well as control and prevention of viruses and other malicious programs.

Course Goals:

Upon completion of the course, participants should:
1. Understand the threats, vulnerabilities and risks with an information system infrastructure
2. Understand the security issues in network systems
3. Have a basic understanding of cryptography
4. Be familiar with cryptographic technologies including symmetric key cryptosystem and asymmetric key cryptosystem
5. Have a basic understanding of firewalls, routers and protocols in communication systems
6. Be familiar with Risk Management practices
7. Be able to distinguish between business continuity and disaster recovery
8. Develop an understanding of laws and ethics regarding information systems security

Course Objectives:

At the conclusion of this course the student will be able to:
1. Identify the resources of an information system that must be protected
2. Distinguish information security from operations and physical security
3. List potential security threats, vulnerabilities and risks of information systems, particularly on the network
4. Define and discuss the role of cryptography
5. Evaluate various data encryption methods
6. Identify various control mechanisms used to prevent, detect and correct error in an information system
7. Define the responsibilities of Security Administrators
8. Be able to develop a disaster recovery plan for an information system
9. Develop standards, guidelines and procedures to implement security policy in an information system

Grading Information:

Grades for this course will be assigned as follows:
 
    A     92%
    B     80 – 91%
    C     70 – 79%
    F     Below 70%
 
Please note that Bowie State University does not use "D" for graduate students. The grade F(a) is used to designate academic failure. F(n) is used to designate failure for non-completion.  Grades of Incomplete or Withdrawal are governed by UMUC-Europe policies. For further details, please refer to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog, available in your local Education Center or online at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/general_info/publications/catalogs.

Course Requirements:

Graduate school at the masters level focuses on helping students obtain the education needed for success as professionals in their chosen fields. Thus, UMUC-Europe Graduate Programs and Bowie State University share the common goals of promoting excellence in academic scholarship through thoughtful inquiry and the skillful application of knowledge and theory for the betterment of society.
 
In order to maximize your graduate educational experience in general and this course in particular, you are required to:
 
30% Midterm Exam
30% Final Exam
25% “Hot Topic” Project Proposal, Paper, Presentation
15% Participation and In-Class Work

Description of Course Requirements:

Participate in classroom discussions: You are expected to come to class prepared to engage in all discussions in a professional and informed manner. Usually this requires two to three hours for every hour of a face-to-face class and approximately ten hours of preparation per week for a DE class.
 
Complete graduate level projects or programming assignments, write graduate level papers or case studies:  You are required to conduct professional-level research, including appropriately citing works of others and avoiding plagiarism. Resubmission of course work from previous classes (whether or not taken at UMUC, UMUC-Europe or BSU), partially or in its entirety, is not acceptable in this course and will result in an automatic failure on the assignment.
 
Orally/visually present prepared material: You are required to present your results in a professional manner. In a face-to-face course, this typically means an oral presentation accompanied by appropriate visual material. In a DE class, this means creating a visual/textual presentation for your instructor and classmates.
 
Complete one or more written examination(s): The examination process in this class will assist you in developing the writing and critical thinking skills necessary for successfully passing the comprehensive exam required of all graduate students. The examination questions used for this course will either be taken directly from past comprehensive exams or written as though to be included on a comprehensive exam.

"Hot Topic" Project

The “Hot Topic” Project is to be selected by the student, and is subject to approval by the instructor. During the third weekend, the student is to give a Powerpoint presentation of the proposed topic, which should be posed as a focused question to be researched and answered. The presentation must state the question to be answered, and provide a summary of preliminary results and a plan for further work. During this presentation, it is expected that other students will propose additional questions to be considered in this project, and to be answered within the paper (5 to 10 pages) and the final presentation of the project work.

Participation and In-Class Work

There will be in-class exercises and discussion questions.

Course Schedule:

Projected Course Schedule

Oct 30
  • Course Introduction
  • Introduction to Information Security (Ch. 1)
  • The Need for Security (Ch. 2)
Oct 31
  • Legal, Ethical & Professional Issues in Info Security (Ch. 3)
  • Risk Management: Identifying and Assessing Risk (Ch. 4)
Nov 13
  • Risk Management: Assessing and Controlling Risk (Ch. 5)
  • Blueprint for Security (Ch. 6)
Nov 14
  • Planning for Continuity (Ch. 7)
  • Security Technology (Ch. 8)
  • Cryptography appendix (pp. 323-354)
Dec 4
  • Last-minute questions.
  • Midterm Exam
  • Presentations of “Hot Topic” proposals.
  • Supplementary information on Cryptography.
Dec 5
  • Physical Security (Ch. 9)
  • Implementing Security (Ch. 10)
Dec 18
  • Security and Personnel (Ch. 11)
  • Information Security Maintenance (Ch. 12)
Dec 19
  • Last-minute questions.
  • Final Exam.
  • “Hot Topic” Paper and Presentations.

Academic Policies:

The University has a license agreement with Turnitin.com, a service that helps prevent plagiarism from internet resources. I may be using this service in this class by either requiring students to submit their papers electronically to Turnitin.com or by submitting questionable text on behalf of a student. If you or I submit part or all of your paper, it will be stored by Turnitin.com in their database throughout the term of the University's contract with Turnitin.com. If you object to this temporary storage of your paper, you must let me know no later than two weeks after the start of this class. Please Note: If you object to the storage of your paper on Turnitin.com, I may utilize other services to check your work for plagiarismThe official university policy on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty can be found at http://www.umuc.edu/policy/aa15025.shtml. Section I.C. states: "Faculty may determine if the resubmission of course work from previous classes (whether or not taken at UMUC), partially or in its entirety, is acceptable when assigning a grade on that piece of course work. Faculty must provide this information in their written syllabi. If the resubmission of course work is deemed to be unacceptable, a charge may not be brought under this Policy and will be handled as indicated in the written syllabi."

Please refer to Description of Course Requirements for specific information on how resubmissions will be treated in this course and to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog for information on the following:

Academic Integrity
Course Load
Exception to Policy
Grade Appeal Process
Make-up Examinations
Nondiscrimination
Students with Disabilities

Hard copies of the catalog are available at your local Education Center.

Faculty Bio:

Carl Scharpf received his M.S. degree from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1987. After graduating, he spent 10 years managing computer facilities and teaching at USC’s School of Engineering. Since then, he has continued teaching at the university level and has worked at Microsoft.


Last updated by Carl A Scharpf: September 30, 2004, 12:21 am
Find this syllabus linked from the schedule at: http://www.ed.umuc.edu/schedule