1. A Research Mentor’s Perspective Dr. Susan Gerhart, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering gerharts@erau.edu http://pr.erau.edu/~gerharts Assistant: Kelley Harbin, junior CS major

2. What did we do? 4 teams, 3-5 students each 2 topics –Viruses and Worms – intruder programs –Stegonography – messages in images 5 sessions, Fri./Sat. morning Developed websites Final presentations

3. Why Computer Security? Fascinates students Fact of everyday life Outreach for ERAU NSF Grant –Cryptography (NSA style security) –Buffer overflow (causes intrusions) –Bioterrorism defense in transportation http://nsfsecurity.pr.erau.edu U.S. needs “security corps” to protect websites

4. Research Progression 1.Topic intro, team formation, library session 2.Framework/terms: vulnerabilities in an office: eavesdropping, networks, many dimensions 3.Interview Q&A with a security expert, Dr. Matt Jaffe, CS prof, former Hughes 4.Setting up a website to present results 5.Exchanged presentations with bioterrorism groups

5. Building a website Used ERAU server space, e.g. http://pr.erau.edu/~ubteam2 http://pr.erau.edu/~ubteam2 Learned Mozilla Composer, a WYSYWYG HTML editor I uploaded (another tool, SSH) to website Students went nuts with images and colors 1steg..htm 1VirusWorms.htm 2VirusWorm.htm1steg..htm1VirusWorms.htm 2VirusWorm.htm

6. Presentations/Results No programming, mostly writing Who’s the audience on the web? Define terms, concepts Explain in own words, how worms work, images hide info Tell do’s and do not’s – whom to trust History and future trends – 10 years ahead Asking questions of other presenters

7. What did students learn? Lots of security websites Security is a field of study, future career? Technology concepts: images, networks Skills for building web pages Teamwork and group writing hard

8. What did I learn? Students very comfortable with computing Hard to get across security framework, need more than office vulnerability tour Stegonography needed more background Security expert went over heads Website creation was doable, some preferred PPT to HTML, worth it? Bioterrorism exchange good dry run