(previous versions)

Math Requirement

ECE 8007 - Matrix Theory
CSC 8301 - Design & Analysis of Algorithms
MAT 7770 - Number Theory
MAT 8435 - Mathematical Modeling
MAT 8650 - Abstract Algebra

Cybersecurity Discipline Specific Exam

• The student is required to answer 8 questions: 4 from the cybersecurity area, and 2 each from the networks and programming areas. Some questions may span more than one subject area, for example a programming problem related to computer security or networks.

• The examination is closed book, closed notes, and no calculator or computing devices are permitted. In some cases, reference material may be provided to the student as an appendix to the exam questions.

• Sample problems are generally not provided.

• The examination questions are at the MS level, as represented by the level expected of students who pass the preparatory courses listed below. The list of topics is provided below for each subject area. The examination questions are derived from these lists.

Subject Areas and Topics

Cybersecurity

Cryptography, privacy, and authentication including secret and public key cryptography, protocols, key management, hash functions, digital signatures, and secure electronic mail. Malware and cyber threats: computer network defense; software for data protection and privacy, security information and event management, governance, risk and compliance; trusted computer systems and secure applications; identity and access management including biometrics; next generation security concepts.

Applied Programming

C or Java programming including arrays, pointers, strings, structures, dynamic memory allocation, recursion, and list processing. Unix operating system including basic commands, the file system, system calls, and shell scripts.

Computer Networks

Broad Concepts: The layered reference models: ISO OSI and TCP/IP reference model, their functions and relevance, example protocols at each layer; circuit and packet switching; connection-oriented and connectionless service; LANs, MANs, WANs; network performance in terms of latency, bandwidth, throughput and utilization and their calculation; the delay-bandwidth product.

Signal Transmission: wired and wireless transmission media - twisted pair, coax, single and multi-mode fiber, RF, satellites; communication frequency spectrum; baseband and AC signaling; modulation concepts - ASK, FSK, PSK; Nyquist's and Shanon's theorems and data rate computation; bit encoding schemes - NRZ, NRZI, Manchester, and 4B/5B.

Channel Access and Error Control: Fragmentation, Framing using character counts, byte and bit flags with associated stuffing; error detection - parities, checksums, CRC; ARQ, stop-and-wait, sliding windows; the MAC sublayer in TCP/IP - Ethernet, hubs and learning bridges, spanning tree protocol, CSMA/CD; IEEE 802.11 protocols, CSMA/CA and the hidden and exposed terminal problems.

Routing: Routing tables for datagrams and virtual circuits, source routing, switching/routing architectures - workstations, cross-bars and self-routing (Batcher-Banyan) fabrics; IPv4 addressing and subnetting; ARP and DHCP; VPNs and tunneling; Intra-domain routing - DV and OSPF; Interdomain routing - BGP.

Transport: TCP state diagram, timers and handshakes for connection setup/teardown; TCP congestion control, optimizations, wireless TCP

Other Concepts: DNS, Portmapping, NAT and Firewalls, QoS - RSVP and DiffServ models; traffic shaping and policing - leaky buckets, token buckets and combinations thereof.

Introduction to Queuing Theory: Markovian system models; the M/M/1/infty, M/M/1/N, M/M/m/infty and M/M/m/N queuing systems (both state-independent and state-dependent); global and local balance; system stability condition and computation of steady state probabilities; performance analysis - queue occupancy, utilization, throughput, response time and idleness; Little's law; Pollaczek-Khinchin mean value formula for M/G/1/infty systems.

Preparatory Courses

ECE 8476 - Cryptography & Network Security
ECE 8484 - Cybersecurity Threats and Defense
ECE 8473 - Unix and C Programming
ECE 7428 - Computer Communication Networks

References

Textbooks from the preparatory courses

Notes on network performance analysis, from Dr. Sarvesh Kulkarni: part 1/2, part 2/2.