Information Security and Cryptography —
Fundamentals and Applications

June 10-12, 2024 in Zurich, Switzerland

Lecturers: Prof. David Basin and Prof. Ueli Maurer

This seminar provides an in-depth coverage of Information Security and Cryptography from both a conceptual and an application-oriented viewpoint. At the same time, the mathematical, algorithmic, protocol-specific, and system-oriented aspects are explained in a way understandable to a wide audience. This includes the foundations needed to understand the different approaches, a critical look at the state-of-the-art, and a perspective on future security technologies.

The material is presented at three different levels. At the highest level, the basic concepts are presented in detail, but abstractly (e.g., as black boxes), without mathematics. No background is required to follow at this level. At an intermediate level, the most important concrete schemes, models, algorithms, and protocols are presented as well as their applications. Here some minimal mathematical and systems background is assumed. At the deepest level, which is not required to understand the higher levels, different special topics, requiring some mathematical background, are discussed.

Information Security: An Overview

Information at Risk: Threats, Security Objectives, and Security Measures
Classification of the Fundamental Information Security Problems
Course Overview

Cryptography: Central Methods and Foundations

Some History
Types and Models of Cryptographic Systems
Cryptographic Functions, Hash Functions
Secrecy, Authenticity, and their Duality and Independence
Symmetric Cryptography: Block Ciphers, Stream Ciphers, MACs, etc.
Randomness and Pseudo-Randomness
Cryptanalytic Attacks, Assumptions, Security Definitions
Public-Key Encryption and Secret-Key Agreement
Digital Signatures, Certificates

Cryptography Foundations

Discrete Mathematics Basics, Groups, Fields
Theoretical Foundations of Cryptography
Discrete Logarithms, Factoring, and other Hard Problems
Design and Analysis of Cryptographic Systems
RSA: Workings and Security Analysis
Diffie-Hellman Protocol: Workings and Security Analysis
Elliptic Curve Cryptography
Modes of Operation for Cryptographic Systems
Security Proofs, Indistinguishability, Reductions
Constructive Cryptography and Universal Composability

System and Network Security

Networking Essentials
Trade-offs in Securing Network Layers
Security Protocols including Kerberos, SSL, IPsec
Security Architectures
Firewalls and Intrusion Detection

PKI and Key Management

Key Management Challenges
PKI Certificates, Architectures, and Standards
Key Revocation and Recovery
Trust Models (Direct, Cross, Hierarchical, Web of Trust)
X.509 and PGP
Alternative PKIs: Client, CA, and Domain-Centric Options
Certificate Handling in Web Browsers

Authentication, Authorization, and Access Control

AAA Architectures: Authentication, Authorization, and Access Control
Authentication: Passwords, Biometrics, and Token-based
Policies and Models
Access Control Matrix Model
DAC and MAC Models
BLP, Biba, and Chinese Wall Models
RBAC, XACML
Single Sign-on
Identity Management

Privacy and Usage Control

Data Protection and Control of Intellectual Property
Anonymity and Privacy-enhancing Technologies
Proxies, Mix Networks, and other Anonymity Approaches
Usage Control Architectures
Digital Rights Management and Trusted Computing

Security Engineering and Web-Application Security

Security Engineering in the Software Engineering Life Cycle
Common Vulnerability Classes including: Session Management, Injection Attacks, Cross-Site Scripting, and Race Conditions
Security Standards and Certification

Advanced Topics in Cryptography

Zero-Knowledge Protocols
Secure Multi-Party Computation
E-Voting
Quantum Cryptography

Blockchains and Digital Payment Systems

Classification of Digital Payment Systems, E-Cash
Blockchains and Distributed Ledgers
Smart Contracts
Crypto-Currencies, Bitcoin

Download our seminar brochure with the course description.

Seminar's format

The sessions are interactive, with the possibility to decide, on demand, which topics should be treated in more depth. There are coffee breaks in the morning and afternoon. The lecturers will also be available for discussions on all related topics. The lectures and all course material are in English.

Early registration before February 28, 2024: CHF 4,400
Standard registration as from March 1, 2024 CHF 4,800

Price includes course material, lunches, coffee breaks, and beverages during the seminar.

Seminar enrollment: complete and send us this form to enroll in the seminar.

Information Security and Cryptography — Fundamentals and Applications

Lecturers: Prof. David Basin and Prof. Ueli Maurer

Venue of the seminar 2024

Information Security and Cryptography —
Fundamentals and Applications