The Future of Security Systems and Information Assurance

(CDSE ED 510)

Defense Security Service (DSS)

Center for Development of Security Excellence (CDSE)
Education Division

SAMPLE COURSE SYLLABUS*

1 Course Description/Overview

It is commonly and correctly observed that the flow of information has expanded greatly since
the 1990s. In parallel, our dependence on this flow has deepened, as has the need to secure it
from exploitation, theft, and denial. The ability to assure the confidentiality, integrity, and
availability of our information was always important—today, however, it is essential.

It is vital to note that the domain of information assurance is in a state of flux. New threats and
threat vectors emerge regularly, and defenses are required to adjust accordingly. The task of
capturing the current and future state of information assurance is akin to the task of capturing the
state of radar and electronic warfare in 1940. A student of the domain must therefore understand
both the underlying principles, which remain relatively stable, and the more dynamic patterns of
attack and defense that emerge through a constant flow of security events. The key, of course, is
to anticipate these patterns and get ahead of the attacker.

Persons responsible for designing, implementing, and operating information systems, then, must
start with a solid understanding the core principles of information assurance, information
security, and security engineering. In short, they need to know what to secure and how to secure
it. This in turn requires them to understand principles of risk, governance, knowledge
management and sharing, and systems engineering.

Students in the course will be required to evaluate principles and applications in each of these
areas, with an overall emphasis on operative security systems. The course will first introduce
students to the necessary conceptual and analytical framework. This framework will include an
overview of the current security environment and a review of the risks and opportunities inherent
in this environment. A key concept here is the notion of tradeoffs—every new system introduces
both opportunities and risks, and sometimes neither the opportunities nor the risks are
immediately apparent. Students will be given a toolkit of analytical methods for structuring their
understanding of these systems and will be required to model systems using this toolkit.

This background will give students the ability to properly contextualize the functions and design
tradeoffs of operative security systems. Students will be introduced to each system of interest
and its associated functions and properties. (It is worth noting that this is not a course in software
or systems engineering, although principles of both apply.)

Students will be expected to critique the general principles and analytical toolkit introduced
during the course to the effort of evaluating the risks and opportunities associated with the

*Sample syllabus is subject to change each semester.

systems of interest. They will also be expected to synthesize practical lessons and heuristics
across the body of systems addressed. Students will be expected to exhibit this analysis and
synthesis in both online discussions and the research projects, particularly the second project,
which will require them to design a notional future security system that performs one or more of
the critical functions discussed during the course.

The course will close by considering the future of security systems. This is a necessary coda; the
security environment changes rapidly, and security professionals must attempt to anticipate these
changes. The pre-recorded lectures, readings, and assignments completed during the course
should enable the students to engage in a healthy and informed evaluation of the factors driving
the future security environment and the possible effects of changes within that environment.

Because this class is designed for security professionals with varying levels of expertise in
differing security disciplines, it is anticipated that the combined efforts of all class participants
will stimulate discussion and the exchange of ideas while driving the learning environment.
Accordingly, adequate class preparation will be required to successfully complete this course.

2 Target Audience/Prerequisites

This course is intended for DoD civilian and military personnel who perform security leadership
and management duties. It is assumed that all students will be prepared to take on graduate-level
work in the security field.

3 Student Outcomes/Objectives

At the end of this course, students will be expected to be able to

 Assess the current security environment, including the risks and opportunities that attend
new processes and technologies;
 Summarize the nature and role of information assurance in both providing and protecting
information;
 Evaluate the essential issues involved in sharing and protecting information, including
issues of risk, knowledge sharing, and education;
 Appraise the interrelationships among elements that comprise a modern security system,
including hardware, software, policies, and people;
 Differentiate the functions and types of modern security systems and illustrate them using
specific examples;
 Assess the tradeoffs that security engineers should consider when designing,
implementing, and operating balanced security systems;
 Evaluate the factors and issues that frame the possible future security environments, and
estimate the effect of these issues on current security design and operations;
 Examine and assess the roles, responsibilities, requirements, and effectiveness of select
DoD information systems and programs;
- Investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of information assurance relative to the
DoD Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process (DIACAP);
 - Discuss and evaluate the effectiveness of how information assurance principles are
applied in the National Industrial Security Program (NISP);
- Discuss and evaluate the security effectiveness of information systems that currently
exist to support DoD security programs; and
 Appraise information systems that could or should be developed in the future (near-term
and long-term) to support DoD security.

4 Delivery Method

This is a graduate-level distance-learning course in assessing current and future security

functions, technologies, and systems relevant to DoD programs. The course will consist of
readings, lectures and presentations, asynchronous sessions, participation in the discussion
forum, graded research papers, and three quizzes.

Because this is a 3 credit hour equivalent course, the contact time over the 16 weeks should be
approximately 30 hours. A typical week will include a 45–60 minute lecture or equivalent
presentation with notes and comments; the lecture or presentation will be followed by either a
quiz (about one hour duration to complete), an alternative assignment, or an on-line discussion
forum. Generally a discussion will be based on instructor-provided discussion question(s) with
each student providing a response and then commenting on other student inputs. This discussion
format will constitute the remainder of the contact time for each lesson (for eight lessons).

Students should be prepared to discuss and debate the readings as well as examine and assess
them for biases and multiple perspectives. Students should also be investigating how other
disciplines relate to the readings and be prepared to discuss this aspect.

The assigned course readings will draw from a variety of resources, such as authoritative
readings (legislation, executive orders, policies, plans and strategies, and journals),
implementation readings (government products that are responsive to or attempt to fulfill the
requirements of authoritative documents), and external reviews (from the U.S. Government
Accountability Office, Congressional Research Service, or other agency or office). Students will
be provided with a large number of open access and password protected sites yielding a
tremendous number of peer-reviewed research assets.

Students will also be expected to monitor and interpret current information security news and
will be provided with links to news stories and events during the course. These will help support
the structured online discussions.

Students will be expected to do research at the graduate level in this course. To provide a
substantial research capability to all students in the program, a number of internet-accessible
research sites will be sent to each student prior to the first lesson. Students will also receive
information for signing on to approximately a dozen other research sites or databases relevant to
security and defense studies; one example would be opening an account with the Defense
Technical Information Center (DTIC). This will ensure that every student has more than enough
resources to do the research expected in this course. The instructor may provide additional
research sources or sites. Students are also encouraged to make use of library and research
sources available to them in their own geographical area or through their own professional or
academic networks (such as the Pentagon and NDU libraries).

5 General Course Requirements

Class participation is both important and required. If, due to an emergency, students are not able
to respond to a discussion promptly in the week it is assigned, they must contact the instructor by
e-mail and will be expected to post their response in the following week.

Weekly assignments must be posted in the Sakai CLE by 2359 EST on the day they are due. It is
expected that assignments will be submitted on time; however, it is recognized that students
occasionally have serious problems that prevent work completion. If such a dilemma arises,
students should contact the instructor in a timely fashion.

6 Academic Integrity Policy

“The Center for Development of Security Excellence holds its students, faculty, and staff to the
highest standards of integrity and security. The Center does not tolerate the misleading use of
any information and data. All alleged violations of academic integrity will be investigated and
resolved.

Violations Defined: The CDSE specifically prohibits cheating, plagiarism, and the toleration of
those students who do.

Cheating is defined as committing an act with the intent to receive undeserved credit or gain an
unfair advantage, or assisting, or attempting to assist, others in doing likewise.

Plagiarism is defined as the act of taking ideas, writings, or the like from another and passing
them off as one's own by not providing the proper credit to the original author. Specifically, it is
the intentional, knowing, or reckless failure to document or correctly attribute another's ideas.

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

The duplication of an author's words without both quotation marks and accurate references or
footnotes and/or use of an author's ideas in paraphrase without accurate reference or footnotes.

Students are expected to credit properly and accurately the source of materials directly cited or
indirectly used (i.e., paraphrased) in any oral or written work. All student work shall be their
own, unless otherwise properly noted.

Toleration is defined as a student or students believing that a violation of academic integrity may
have occurred and not reporting the violation. Any student who knowingly witnesses a violation
of academic integrity and does not report the same will be considered as having committed a
cheating or plagiarism violation.”
7 Grading

The following provides an approximate breakdown of how each assignment contributes to the
overall performance in the class.

Class participation (via online discussion) 15%

Quizzes 15%
Final exam 20%
Research paper 30%
Security Project 20%

A letter grade will be assigned to each graded assignment, following the grading scale below:

A = 90% – 100%
B = 80% – 89%
C = 70% – 79%
D = 60% – 69%
F = 59% and below

Individual graded assignments with a score lower than 80% are acceptable; however, a student’s
final grade at the end of the semester must be 80% or higher to pass the course.

Evaluation criteria for discussion question responses are listed below.

ASSIGNMENT EVALUATION CRITERIA

 Uses complete sentences
 Uses proper grammar structure
 Responses reflect depth of thought and critical thinking skills
 Integrates and interprets material from class/readings into
responses
 Provides coherent and reasoned responses to all questions
 Integrates real world examples into responses
 Meets submission timeline

Evaluation criteria for each graded assignment aside from discussion questions, including the
midterm and final exams, are listed below. Any assignment that receives a failing grade can be
resubmitted within the following two weeks, but there will be no further extensions beyond this
two-week period.
 Assignment Evaluation Criteria
A B C D F
Content Analysis and Analysis and Analysis and Analysis and Did not
interpretation integration integration integration complete
subject matter subject matter subject matter subject matter assignment
(readings, is clear and is is
lecture, effective underdeveloped unsophisticated
discussion,
personal
experience,
etc.) is clear
and convincing
Organization Paper shows Paper shows Paper lacks Paper is
exceptionally good clear disorganized
clear organization, organization, and confusing
organization, purpose and purpose and
purpose and focus focus
focus
Grammar Free of most Some Frequent Appropriate Did not
grammatical grammatical grammatical grammatical complete
errors mistakes but errors knowledge not assignment
generally displayed for
shows current
successful language level
grammar usage
Overall Effect A strong A good overall Paper struggles Paper has a
overall effect effect with overall and poor overall
with clear support and does not give a effect and does
communication adequate coherent not fulfill
and peer-level clarity message assignment
support
Timeliness Assignment Assignment Assignment Assignment
turned in on turned in on turned in on turned in on
time time time time

Class Participation (15%):

To meet the requirement for sufficient contact time each week, there will be a combination of
presentations and lectures by the instructor along with online discussions by and among the
students. This approach will be true for eight of the lessons. In a typical weekly lesson, the
presentation and notes require a minimum student engagement of 45 minutes (the student can
absorb the presentation in smaller periods if desired). The students will then be presented one or
two discussion questions for response to the instructor and then comment on the inputs from two
other students. Each of these eight online discussions is worth 20 points. The student response to
the instructor is worth 4 or 8 points. Each comment to a fellow student is worth 3 or 6 points.
The time expected to complete this online response/comment is one hour.

Quizzes (15%):

Each open-book quiz will be the equivalent of one hour of contact time and together will be
worth fifteen percent of the overall grade. The quizzes will be short answer (choosing five out of
seven questions). The first quiz will cover material covered up to that point in the course. The
second quiz will cover material covered since the first quiz.

Final Exam (20%):

The final exam will assess the students’ ability to interpret, critique, and assess, and the
principles and topics presented during the course. While the two quizzes (above) will require the
students to answer a set of short questions, the final exam will require the students to answer two
questions in depth (five pages each, double spaced, for a total of 10 pages, not including
bibliography). Students will be expected to document their sources and will be required to
employ the Chicago Manual of Style as the exam’s style and citation guide.

Research Paper (30%):

The students will be required to write a graduate-level research paper (20 pages, double spaced,
not including front matter and bibliography). The paper will allow the students to delve more
deeply into the challenges of managing the systems that help assure the confidentiality, integrity,
and availability of information. Outside research will be required, and the students will be
required to employ the Chicago Manual of Style as the paper’s style and citation guide.

Students will deliver the paper in three phases: (1) an annotated bibliography of sources
documented using Chicago style, (2) a draft of the completed paper, and (3) a final version of the
paper. This phased approach will allow the instructor to provide students with feedback along the
way instead of only at the end of the project. Overall, the students will be required to evaluate the
topic with an eye toward defending and justifying a well-reasoned position.

Security Project (20%)

In the security project, each student will prepare a notional security plan and notional risk
assessment (approximately 10 pages, double spaced, not including the risk assessment
spreadsheet). This plan will address the issues discussed in the texts and the course and tailor the
plan to a context defined by the student. This risk assessment will be built using MITRE’s Risk
Matrix tool. It will reflect real-world conditions but not represent a real-world system or
enterprise. The student will be expected to apply a superior level of analysis when creating the
combined plan. As with the research paper, students will be required to employ the Chicago
Manual of Style as the paper’s style and citation guide.

8 Course Evaluation

You will have the opportunity to evaluate the course several different ways throughout the
semester. You will have access to post your feedback to a forum through Sakai. The forum will
remain open throughout the semester, and it will be monitored regularly. Participation in the
forum is entirely optional. You will also complete two online course evaluations: one at the
middle of the semester and one after the semester. As this is the first time we’ve offered this
course, your experience and feedback is invaluable to our ability to improve the course for future
CDSE students.
9 Course Textbooks

The primary text for this course will be Jason Andress’ The Basics of Information Security,
published by Syngress in 2011. This continues to be one of the most concise introductions to the
topic. Mark Rhodes-Ousley’s Information Security, The Complete Reference, Second Edition
(2013) complements the material in the Andress volume by providing additional information on
specific topics. Students must purchase or otherwise obtain these two texts for this course.

10 Course Outline

Week Topics Method of Assignments due

instruction
1 Overview of the Security Environment  Reading Student
 Course and student introductions  Asynchronous introductions/
 The state of information assurance presentation biographical
today and interaction sketch.
 Advanced persistent threats
 Why information assurance (IA)
matters at DoD

2 Transitioning to the Future—Cloud  Reading Discussion forum

and Mobile Computing  Asynchronous (DF) 1: Respond
 Cloud computing presentation to instructor
 Mobile computing systems  Discussion discussion
 Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) questions and
policies other student
responses
3 Transitioning to the Future—Social  Reading DF 2
Media  Asynchronous
 Social media presentation
 Information sharing  Discussion

4 Risk Analysis  Reading Annotated

 Understanding system-wide  Asynchronous bibliography
tradeoffs presentation
 Risk strategies  Discussion
 Risk management

5 Systems Engineering and Security  Reading DF3

 Systems engineering concepts  Asynchronous
 Systems and enterprise architecture presentation
 Security metrics  Discussion
Week Topics Method of Assignments due
instruction
6 The Human Side of Security  Reading Quiz 1
 The psychology of security  Asynchronous
 Social engineering presentation
 The insider threat
 Security education and knowledge
sharing

7 IA Concepts I  Reading DF4

 Identification and authentication  Asynchronous
 Authorization and access control presentation
 Auditing and accountability  Discussion

8 IA Concepts II  Reading Research paper

 Cryptography  Asynchronous (draft)
 Operations security presentation
 Physical security

9 IA Concepts III  Reading DF 5

 Network security  Asynchronous
 Operating system (OS) security presentation
 Application security  Discussion

10 Systems and Programs I: IA in DoD  Reading Research paper

Practice  Asynchronous (final version)
 Legislation, compliance, and legal presentation
issues  Discussion
 Roles, responsibilities, and
requirements
 DIACAP

11 Systems and Programs II: NISP  Reading DF 6

 Roles, responsibilities, functions,  Asynchronous
and requirements presentation
 NISPOM  Discussion

12 Systems and Programs III:  Reading Quiz 2

Information Systems Supporting  Asynchronous
Security Programs presentation
 Programs and systems (JPAS,  Discussion
DCII, SWFT, etc.)
 Introduction to Security Project
Week Topics Method of Assignments due
instruction
13 Analysis Toolkit I  Reading  DF 7
 Summary discussion of systems  Asynchronous
from session 12 presentation
 Scenario planning: why, what, how  Discussion
 Further discussion of Security
Project

14 Analysis Toolkit II  Reading Security project

 Scenario planning  Asynchronous
 Future security technologies presentation

15 Critical review of student papers  Reading DF 8

(security project draft, phase II) on  Asynchronous
security system models and possible presentation
future security systems.  Discussion

16 Wrap-up  Reading Final exam

 Key lessons and principles  Asynchronous
 Future trends and constraints presentation
 How to apply what you’ve learned