Modules

Prerequisites

Contents

In the study project, the participants will acquire practical skills in the application of machine learning (ML) techniques in the area of IT security in adversarial settings. The field of ML is playing an ever increasing role in computer science in general and IT security in particular. The idea of the study project is to mount different attacks and/or implement and evaluate defenses against them. The students will develop scripts to automate the process of executing the attacks and/or defenses. By doing so, they will collect datasets / artifacts that will be used for further analysis, feature engineering and extraction, training and testing of different machine learning techniques. Finally, the students will analyze the results in the form of different quality metrics, and will present the results and write a report. In the form of a self organized study project, the students get familiar and/or deepen their knowledge in machine learning and their applications to cyber security. The participants get deep insights in the state-of-the-art research in ML for cyber security and apply the existing knowledge to build, test, and evaluate their own attacks and defenses. For each project the following work steps have to be accomplished: • Getting acquainted with the state of the art • Acquisition of new knowledge in self-study • Project planning • Selection of the methods to be used • Elaboration of a solution approach • Implementation of the solution approach as a prototype • Testing / evaluating the prototype • Documentation • Final colloquium The module is carried out as a project study in groups of 2 students.

Learning outcomes

Acquisition of practical skills and deepening of knowledge in a field of cyber security, in particular: • Deep insight of the state of the art on the area defined by the project task • Ability to acquaint autonomously new knowledge in the field of IT security • Ability to apply existing and new knowledge to solve the project task • Ability to carry out projects (project planning, time management, communication, ...) • Ability to cooperate with other developers • Ability to work on a specific task within a given deadline, independently and successfully

Assessment

• Executable and tested prototype (50% of total marks) • Complete documentation (20% of total marks) • Successful intermediate presentation of results (10% of total marks) • Successful final presentation of results (20% of total marks) Task-oriented scope of each performance. 75% of the total marks are needed to pass the module.

Remarks

• Study programme Cyber Security M.Sc.: Mandatory module • Study programme Informatik M.Sc.: Compulsory elective module in complex „Seminare oder Praktika“ (level 400) For repeaters, the module is also offered occasionally in the summer semester.