Thesis info for Cyber Security students

Deadlines for 2016 spring

TBD. Check the time-line section below for general guidance.
After the thesis defense, please visit the Dean's Office for more information about final formalities
Upload your thesis if you would like to have it public

Topic and advisor

Every student must have an advisor when writing the thesis. The advisor's role is to provide guidance on topic selection and research methods, as well as to give feedback on your work. It is not the advisor's duty to correct spelling mistakes or formatting errors - they will point such things out, but the responsibility remains with the student. Before a thesis will be accepted for defence, the advisor has to agree that it is of sufficient quality.

Almost any professor and lecturer you have met in your curriculum can act as an advisor of your thesis. Some of them have some open problems suitable for doing research and writing a thesis, but many may not have a topic to offer right away. It is usually more helpful to have an initial idea of a topic of your thesis and ask someone with interests in the related field to advise you. You can have an advisor not related to the university, but he can act only as a co-advisor and you need to agree to somebody related to the curricula or the leading institute of the curriculum to be an official co-advisor. All (co-)advisors must have at least a Master's degree.

When refining a topic idea, make sure it has a clear connection with cyber security.

Potential supervisors

Olaf Maennel - big data forensics, serious games, aviation related cyber security projects, human-factors / cyber-security related psychological problems, network security / network monitoring, insider threads, active & passive measurements, IPv6 & IPv4 and address sharing technologies.
Rain Ottis - national cyber security, serious games in cyber security, cyber security exercises
Risto Vaarandi - log collection and analysis, event correlation, network monitoring, security monitoring. Application for supervision requires passing the Cyber Defense Monitoring Solutions course with grade 4 or 5.
Toomas Lepik - forensics, malware, anti-malware
Hayretdin Bahsi - Cyber security of industrial control systems, security monitoring, cyber situational awareness, cyber threat intelligence, information sharing, organizational security issues (e.g. security in supply chain management, security operation centres), national cyber security governance (e.g national cyber security policies, national cyber security capabilities)
Tiia Sõmer
Truls Ringkjob - various
Jüri Kivimaa - IT security economics, security cost optimization
Bernhards Blumbergs - network security, exploit development, advanced threats, security evasion, IPv6
Aleksandr Lenin: quantitative security risk analysis, security modelling (attack process graphs), security modelling patterns (e.g. attack patterns), analysis of strategic interactions of malicious decision makers, security games (game theory), security decision making and optimization, fuzzy metrics for security, fuzzy decision making and control, fuzzy security analysis, algorithms for security analysis (development, optimization, benchmarking), enhancing ISKE by integrating other analysis tools into the ISKE tool, social aspects of security (modeling and analysing social engineering attacks).
Mauno Pihelgas - system monitoring, network monitoring, IDS/IPS systems, insider threat detection

Proposed topics

The topics below are offered by potential (co-)supervisors. The list is updated as new offers emerge.

From the TUT IT office

Infrastructure

Migrating TUT Campus LAN to IPv6; Edgars Zigurs
Implementing a freeware SIEM solution in TUT; Edgars Zigurs
Campus WiFi quality and signal strength modeling (3D); Edgars Zigurs

Development

electronic door signs, room calendars, etc.; Thomas Lepik
VoIP solutions - softphone, integration with existing information systems; Thomas Lepik
integrating last generation BMS (Building Management System); Thomas Lepik
the student view of OIS (usability, security, re-design); Enn Rebane

From Olaf Maennel, Tallinn University of Technology, olaf.maennel@ttu.ee

Please contact me for topics. Below only brief overview over some example topics:
big data & big data forensics.
serious games/auto-configured cyber security exercises:
- i-tee by Margus Ernits
aviation related cyber security projects:
- FANS security and secure protocols.
- Drones who deliver the mail every morning and fly between houses in the university.
psychological & cognitive cyber security questions
network security, network monitoring:
- we try to break the university it-infrastructure (with approval from the IT-department).
insider threads, intrusion detection.
measurements (active & passive):
- what type of traffic do we have on TOR?
- can we phish spear phishers?
IPv6 & IPv4 and address sharing technologies.

From Arnis Paršovs, University of Tartu, arnis@ut.ee

Topic: On-the-fly encryption for car DVR

Task: Implement on-the-fly encryption functionality for Prestigio car DVR (by patching publicly available firmware - possibly by hooking write calls). Use of hybrid encryption is recommended, however, implementation of scrambling (e.g., XORing with a fixed key) might already be considered success. Describe the threat model, how it was done and how to use it.

Topic: Parallel tallying for Estonian i-voting

Task: Describe security risks that could be reduced if election observers would be allowed to perform vote verification and counting using their computers. Propose changes to the i-voting procedures and develop parallel tallying reference implementation and test data set. Analyse new risks introduced and propose counter measures.

Topic: Perfect Secrecy for TLS

Task: Create an Internet Draft proposing a TLS cipher suite or extension that would ensure perfect secrecy using one-time pad. Develop a proof-of-concept patch for OpenSSL/mod_ssl and Firefox. Analyze the security and usability, describe the use cases.

Topic: TLS Session Resumption and ID card Authentication

Task: Study how TLS session resumption is implemented in browsers. Measure and compare the performance improvement TLS session resumption provides. Measure the performance impact if the TLS client certificate authentication is performed using a smart card.

From Hayretdin Bahsi, Tallinn University of Technology, hayretdin.bahsi@ttu.ee

I classified my interested topics as technical, organizational and strategic ones. I listed some interesting topics I have in my mind. If you already have specific topics, we can discuss them and decide to work together.

Technical Issues

Security of Industrial Control Systems (ICSs)

Development of an ICS security testbed, ICS honeypots, attacks targeting ICS, intrusion detection systems in ICS, event correlation systems in ICS, forensics issues in ICSs.

Situational Awareness and Cyber Threat Intelligence

Analysis and comparison of cyber threat information sharing protocols, privacy preserved sharing of cyber threat intelligence, generation of threat profiles out of cyber exercises, situational awareness outputs for tactical and strategic layers of organizations,requirement analysis of nationwide cyber awareness system

Organizational Issues

Framework for providing security in supply chain management
Security framework for information sharing with third party entities
Analysis of security operation center models

Strategic Issues

High-level information flows and reporting mechanisms among the major entities of national cyber security governance
Maturity models for the analysis of national cyber security capability

TREsPASS project

Research project: Technology-supported Risk Estimation by Predictive Assessment of Socio-technical Security

The project is also suitable for PhD research, following the completion of the Master's studies. Contacts: Dr Peeter Laud, Dr Jan Willemson, Aleksandr Lenin.

From Aleksandr Lenin, Cybernetica AS.

Contact e-mails:

aleksandr.lenin@ttu.ee

aleksandr.lenin@cyber.ee

A list of topics to offer.

From Aivo Kalu, Cybernetica AS

Pilveteenuste ohuanalüüs ja võrdlus ISKE-ga

From Tanel Alumäe, Institute of Cybernetics

Eestikeelse telefonikõne automaatne transkribeerimine

Task: Töö sisuks on kõnetuvastussüsteemi loomine, mis suudaks võimalikult hästi transkribeerida eestikeelset inimestevahelist spontaanset telefonikõnet. Süsteem implementeeritakse kasutades olemasolevat kõnetuvastusmootorit. Kõnemudelite treenimiseks kasutatakse suurt hulka käsitsi transkribeeritud telefonikõnesid. Töö suurimaks väljakutseks on treeningkorpuses olevate kõnetranskriptsioonide joondamine helisignaalidega, et võimaldada telefonikõne-spetsiifiliste mudelite treenimist.

Võtmesõnade otsimine eestikeelsest telefonikõnest

Task: Töö käigus luuakse süsteem, mis suudab kiiresti leida inimestevahelisest eestikeelsest sponaansest telefonikõnest kohti, kus suure tõenäosusega esineb sõna mingist võtmesõnade hulgast. Süsteem implementeeritakse kasutades olemasolevat kõnetuvastusmootorit. Kõnemudelite treenimiseks kasutatakse suurt hulka käsitsi transkribeeritud telefonikõnesid. Töö suurimaks väljakutseks on treeningkorpuses olevate kõnetranskriptsioonide joondamine helisignaalidega, et võimaldada telefonikõne-spetsiifiliste mudelite treenimist. Töö teiseks väljakutseks on erinevate võtmesõnaotsingu meetodite testimine.

From Estonian Police

Vaatlustarkvarade EnCase ja Autopsy võrdlus (selgituseks, et Autopsy on EnCase analoog, kuid tasuta. Vajalik oleks täpne analüüs, et mida Autopsy võimaldab ja mida mitte võrreldes EnCase ja/või FTKga).

Erinevate suhtlustarkvarade (WhatsApp, Viber, FB Messenger, Skype jt) jäljed mobiiltelefonides ja nende analüüsimine (selgituseks, et üldjuhul loovad suhtlustarkvarad mingi andmebaasi vestlustega ka telefoni, kas see on krüpteeritud või mitte? Osad vestlused XRY tuvastab, aga millistel juhtudel? Millised võimalused oleks neid faile nö käsitsi uurida?).

Tõendiahela kirjeldamine elektrooniliste tõendite fikseerimisel (chain of custody)/Elektroonilise sisu erikohtlemine asitõendi vaatlusel/Digitaaltõendite vaatluse kord – erinevate riikid analüüs ja võrdlus.

P2P võrkudes lastest ebasündsate piltide levitajate tuvastamine/P2P võrkudes illegaalse internetisisu levitajate tuvastamine.

Koolituskava väljatöötamine uurijale/menetlejale, kes puutub kokku digitaalsete tõenditega- erinevate riikide praktika võrdlus.

Ask Rain Ottis for a POC on these topics.

Formal Requirements and recommendations

Until further notice, please use the formatting guide (.zip) from the Computer Engineering Department. Please note that you will have to change the title page to read "Department of Computer Science", adding "TUT Centre for Digital Forensics and Cyber Security" on the following line.

The thesis code for IVCM is ITC70LT.

General information. Some general advice that is good to follow for a master thesis:

a title page, an author declaration, an annotation in English and Estonian, a list of contents, and references are required in the thesis
around 50 pages + appendixes if needed
Times New Roman (or similar), font size 12, 1.5 spacing used for the ordinary text
headings are numbered and no more than 3 levels used
2 bound hard copies are submitted, you will get one back afterwards. You also have to submit the license agreement granting TUT the right to store and publish the thesis.
A soft copy of the thesis (in pdf format) and the thesis meta data sheet are sent to thesis@cs.ttu.ee.

The Cyber Defence Seminar (ITX8040) is designed to provide advice on the thesis requirements and writing process to Cyber Security Master's students.

Thesis defence

The thesis defence is typically held in early June. Alternate thesis defence dates can and have been offered (for example, January).

The procedure for thesis defence is set by TUT regulations.

Declarations

In order to catch potential problems early, students are required to indicate their intent to defend (plus topic and advisor info) by the deadline set for each semester. This will be done over e-mail. Selected students will then be assigned a date for an informal pre-defence that is designed to provide them feedback.

Before a student can proceed to the thesis defence, they have to declare the thesis topic in OIS and get approval from their advisor. The deadline for handing in the final version of the thesis (hardcopy and softcopy) is typically at least one week before the defence deadline.

Reviewer

Each thesis will be assigned a reviewer. The reviewer must have at least a Master's degree and relevant knowledge or experience in the field of the thesis topic, and they must not have a conflict of interest (such as being members in the same research group). Students and advisors may recommend reviewer candidates, but the final assignment will be done by the thesis defence committee.

A reviewer will provide written feedback (typically about two pages) on the thesis. The review should cover the following points:

short description of the thesis
strengths and weaknesses of the thesis
recommended grade (0-5, where 0 is a failing thesis and 5 is an excellent thesis) based on the clarity of the problem and the solution, complexity of the problem, suitability of the chosen solution, proper execution of the solution, and the proper formatting and language use in the thesis.
at least three questions that can be asked during the defence.

Based on the student's performance at the defence the reviewer may change the recommended grade.

The reviewer will receive a copy of the thesis about a month before the final/hard university deadline for submitting the thesis. The reason for this is that typically reviewers point typos and small factual mistakes that can be fixed in short time (about a week). The student will receive the review 1-2 weeks before the final university deadline and therefore is able to address some of the comments before submitting the final version. The student can also still decide not to submit the thesis this round, but rather work on improving the quality and then submit an improve version 6 month later.

The defence procedure

On the day of defence, students will be heard according to the announced schedule. Generally, the results will be announced at the end of the day.

The defence procedure for each student consists of the following steps:

the committee Chairman announces the name of the student, the topic of the thesis, and the names of the advisor(s) and reviewer.
the student presents his or her thesis in 15 minutes.
the student answers the reviewer's questions and the reviewer recommends a grade. This recommendation may differ from the preliminary recommendation, based on how successful the defence was.
the student answers questions from the committee.
the student answers questions from the audience.
the advisor gives his or her opinion of the thesis and recommends a grade.

NB! The recommended grades by the reviewer and the advisor are not binding to the committee, who makes the final decision.

Time-line considerations

The following is just a rough guideline, but should give a view on how far in the process the students should be roughly by what time.

June defence

September, October, November: conduct your literature review and work on formulating a clear research hypothesis.
No later than early December: Have your research hypothesis/problem statement well formulated and written-up.
December, January, February: Complete the research work of the thesis.
March: Declare your thesis (see declarations above ) and just focus on writing-up and polishing. Every student is different, but past experience shows over 1+ month is needed to finish the writing process. Informal pre-defences will also be held in March/April time.
Early to Mid-April: send a copy to your supervisor. Agree the dates with your supervisor, but expect that it might take a week for your supervisor to comment on your work. Plan also for time to address the comments from your supervisor.
Early May: submit to thesis to reviewer.
Mid-May receive review and have about 1-2 weeks time to address comments.
End-May/early June: submission of final thesis. This is a university deadline, and is the ultimate hard deadline to submit your thesis.
Early June defence

NB! Do not forget that you need to prepare a 15 min presentation for your defence. This should really not be left to the evening before the defence!

January defence (no summer vacation, if you plan a vacation adjust the dates accordingly)

April, May, June: conduct your literature review and work on formulating a clear research hypothesis.
No later than early July: Have your research hypothesis/problem statement well formulated and written-up.
July, August, September: Complete the research work of the thesis.
October: Declare your thesis (see declarations above) and just focus on writing-up and polishing. Every student is different, but past experience shows over 1+ month is needed to finish the writing process. Informal pre-defences will also be held in October/November time.
Early to Mid-November: send a copy to your supervisor. Agree the dates with your supervisor, but expect that it might take a week for your supervisor to comment on your work. Plan also for time to address the comments from your supervisor.
Early December: submit to thesis to reviewer.
Mid-December receive review and enjoy christmas/new year time to address comments.
Early January: submission of final thesis. This is a university deadline, and is the ultimate hard deadline to submit your thesis.
January defence