Armed with the fundamentals and theory behind modern networking technology, this courses plunges into the reality of how...

Armed with the fundamentals and theory behind modern networking technology, this courses plunges into the reality of how the Internet really works, and how it came to be the resilient, yet in many ways quite fragile, world-wide system it is today.

While billions of people take the Internet for granted today, the system is still at its infancy and is subject to rapid and significant change. One of the interesting, and perhaps surprising, characteristics of the Internet is, that we as individual engineers still can make a difference: by examining what works and what doesn't, and understanding the science and art of what truly makes for a successful protocol, the Internet remains a ripe field of innovation.

In this course we will come face to face with the reality of what is and is not "broken" on the Internet today, how to examine the success or failure of an Internet protocol of their choice, and examine the economic and technical aspects of the patchwork of protocols and systems that make up the most complex distributed system mankind has ever created.

**Requirements:** 

A good dose of curiosity is required. 

As we will be studying some advanced topics in computer networking, INF557 "From the Internet to the IoT: The Fundamentals Of Modern Computer Networking" is also required

**Evaluation mechanism:** This course will be evaluated by way of (i) a traditional exam, and (ii) group projects and presentations.

**Language:** English

From Fundamentals to Reality: How the Internet Really Works, and How To Make It Better

École Polytechnique

As anybody, familiar with 1970s sitcoms can confirm, Mel, Alice's cook used to say: 

*“the best defense is a good offen...

As anybody, familiar with 1970s sitcoms can confirm, Mel, Alice's cook used to say: 

*“the best defense is a good offense”.*

In cybersecurity, a similar saying would be that in order to know how to secure something, one needs first to know how to compromise &amp; break it.

This is exactly what the MODAL offers to do. Through a set of lessons, tutorials, and challenges, we will understand — and try — how to “break things”. This can include topics such as:

- TCP Connection hijacking &amp; SYN flooding
- SQL Injection attacks on WWW servers
- Heartbleed - that SSL bug that caused the whole Internet to flip out
- DNS Cache Poisoning
- ... 
 
We will also call on outside experts, to present their experiences, favorite attacks, and possible countermeasures.

The practical part of this course consists of a set of tutorials and a set of challenges.

- Tutorials: are optional, and serve to help students who need them acquire a certain set of skills. Each tutorial requires a submission of some code, which will be evaluated, and a grade (0-5) will be given.
 
- Challenges: each represent "a thing to hack", such as DNS, or TCP, or DHCP, or invoking a buffer overflow, or performing a man-in-the-middle attack. Challenges will each have an explanation, and supporting material, for what is expected - but will require independent thinking. Each challenge requires a submission of some code, which will be evaluated, and a grade (0-10) will be given. Note that a code submission that "does the job, nothing more, nothing less" will be graded 5. Grades in the interval (5-10) reflect an additional effort, such as highly modular code, flexible, robust, or supporting different attack approaches. 
 
You're encouraged to work in a small group of 1-2 students for each challenge.

You will choose to work on challenges in the order you like, and you will do however many you want - or, need, in order to get enough points to pass the course. 

IT Modal - Cybersecurity — the Hacker eXperience

Threats and attacks are like living organisms: some survive unaltered, mostly hidden from view, but remain deadly when c...

Threats and attacks are like living organisms: some survive unaltered, mostly hidden from view, but remain deadly when conditions are “just right” ; others emerge quickly, wreck havoc, then become extinct — and yet others keep evolving, both in terms of their propagation methods and their impact.

A network professional can therefore not be limited to just static application of risk assessment methodology, nor to mechanical application intrusion detection and forensics tools — and must, by nature, not simply be “following a cookbook”, but must also have a complete understanding of the whole processes, technologies, and theories involved in attacks.

This program in network security is therefore not just limited to a theoretical understanding the state of the art of security standards, threats, and techniques— but tries to bring a broad systems-understanding, to be able to be proactive and identify potential attack surfaces of a system, before an attack exists, and the necessary background to be able to rapidly analyse and understand the root nature of a new attackon a system.

To this end, the program alternates theoretical lectures and hands-on exercises, with seminars and “war-stories”,with 4h practice sessions during which we will be building a first-hand experience with how vulnerable real-world Internet-connected systems are — as well as with how “white-hat”IT professional constructs (more) secured computer networks.

**Structure:** To this end, the program alternates theoretical lectures, seminars, and “war-stories”,with 4h practice sessions during which we will be building a first-hand experience with how vulnerable real-world Internet-connected systems are — as well as with how “white-hat” IT professional constructs (more) secured computer networks.

**Requirements:** A good dose of curiosity is required. As we will be studying some advanced topics in computer networking, INF557 *"From the Internet to the IoT: The Fundamentals Of Modern Computer Networking"* is recommended.

**Evaluation mechanism:** Active participation during weekly TD sessions, worth 50% of the final grade, and a final exam QCM worth the other 50% of the grade.

**Language:** English (with, at least, bilingual teaching staff)

Network Security

Since its creation in 1794, École Polytechnique has been producing and sharing multidisciplinary knowledge at the highest level, for its students, for companies and for society, by developing an entrepreneurial spirit, boldness and a sense of general interest in its three fundamental missions of education, research and innovation.

Ecole polytechnique

All courses at L'X (France)