News

Grades

Written on 19.03.19 by Swen Jacobs

Dear students,

after reviewing your summaries, your grades are now finalized and visible.

CISPA Security Convention

Written on 19.03.19 by Swen Jacobs

Dear students,

on April 1-5, CISPA is organizing a one-week meeting of young researchers (Bachelor/Master level) with presentations from CISPA faculty in different areas of cybersecurity: https://cispa.saarland/secon/

The meeting is intended for international students that come and see CISPA for… Read more

Dear students,

on April 1-5, CISPA is organizing a one-week meeting of young researchers (Bachelor/Master level) with presentations from CISPA faculty in different areas of cybersecurity: https://cispa.saarland/secon/

The meeting is intended for international students that come and see CISPA for the first time, but we still have a few spots left to be filled. If you are interested, you can apply for one of these spots by following the "Register Now!" link on the page. Your application should arrive by the end of this week (sooner is better) - if you have questions feel free to contact me.

P.S.: As a local student you will not get a travel grant, but we will reimburse the participation fee.

Submission of Final Report

Written on 25.02.19 by Swen Jacobs

Dear students,

the submission of the final report is now possible in CMS, and will remain open until (including) Friday.

If you have already sent me your report by mail, that is also fine.

Slides&Notes now available, Final Report

Written on 01.02.19 by Swen Jacobs

Dear students,

I have now made available (under Materials) the slides of your talks, as well as photos of the whiteboard from our discussions. Both should help you in writing your final report that is due February 28.

As explained on the introductory slides, the report should contain at the very… Read more

Dear students,

I have now made available (under Materials) the slides of your talks, as well as photos of the whiteboard from our discussions. Both should help you in writing your final report that is due February 28.

As explained on the introductory slides, the report should contain at the very least a short summary of all papers you read (about half a page per paper). To get full points, it should also include an analysis of the papers (strengths, weaknesses, possible extensions,...) and a comparison between them. You are free to choose an appropriate structure yourself (e.g., each summary directly followed by an analysis and comparison, or first all the summaries and then a separate part on analysis and comparison). None of this has to go into the formal details, and the expected length of the report is 8-12 pages.

Timetable and additional documents

Written on 27.11.18 by Swen Jacobs

Dear students,

the dates of paper presentations (together with paper titles) are now available under Information -> Timetable.

I have also added the template for the final report, as well as scoresheets for report and presentation, under Information -> Materials. Please use the template and take… Read more

Dear students,

the dates of paper presentations (together with paper titles) are now available under Information -> Timetable.

I have also added the template for the final report, as well as scoresheets for report and presentation, under Information -> Materials. Please use the template and take the scoresheets into consideration when preparing your presentation and report.

Presentation Topics assigned, next meeting

Written on 16.11.18 by Swen Jacobs

Dear students,

the presentation topics have finally been assigned (there has been some trouble figuring out who still participates in the seminar, sorry for that).

In the next meeting, Karl Schrader will give an informal presentation of the paper Secure Information Flow by… Read more

Dear students,

the presentation topics have finally been assigned (there has been some trouble figuring out who still participates in the seminar, sorry for that).

In the next meeting, Karl Schrader will give an informal presentation of the paper Secure Information Flow by Self-composition.

It would be great if we had one or two volunteers for the other paper, Automated Analysis of Cryptographic Protocols Using Murphi. Please let me know if you would be willing to present it on Thursday. If that works, we will not have additional reading group papers and will directly proceed to your full presentations, probably starting on December 6.

See you next week!

 

More Background on Model Checking

Written on 04.11.18 by Swen Jacobs

Dear students,

for those of you who have not had a course on verification (or similar) or who want to refresh their memory, I have added another resource under Information->Materials->Background: the book "Principles of Model Checking".

Necessary for our seminar is only Section 2.1, which… Read more

Dear students,

for those of you who have not had a course on verification (or similar) or who want to refresh their memory, I have added another resource under Information->Materials->Background: the book "Principles of Model Checking".

Necessary for our seminar is only Section 2.1, which explains what a transition system is and how its reachable states are defined, as well as Section 2.2 up to (including) Section 2.2.1, which explains the concurrent execution of multiple transition systems - a special case of that will be important for model checking information-flow properties.

To get a better background, Chapter 1 and Sections 3.1 to 3.3 are also useful. The rest of the book goes beyond what we will need in the seminar.

Time and Place for Regular Meetings

Written on 31.10.18 by Swen Jacobs

Dear students,

the time and place for our regular meetings is now fixed.

Starting next week, we will meet on

Thursdays, 12-14

in

Room 323 of E1 7 (the building of the MMC2 cluster, in front of E1 1).

See you there next week!

Introduction to Model Checking

Written on 25.10.18 by Swen Jacobs

Dear students,

for those of you that do not have a background in model checking, I have added a link to a course "Introduction to Model Checking" in the Materials.

To get the basic ideas of system models, Lecture 1 and the first half of Lecture 2 should be enough.

Based on these models, we… Read more

Dear students,

for those of you that do not have a background in model checking, I have added a link to a course "Introduction to Model Checking" in the Materials.

To get the basic ideas of system models, Lecture 1 and the first half of Lecture 2 should be enough.

Based on these models, we are interested in safety model checking, which is fairly simple: does there exist a finite trace in the model with certain properties? (in the easiest case: a trace that ends in a state with a certain given label)
 

Poll for Time of Regular Meetings

Written on 24.10.18 by Swen Jacobs

Dear students,

I have just opened a poll regarding the time slot for our regular meetings in the forum: click here. Please cast your vote as soon as possible, the poll is open for the next 48h.

Show all

Selected Topics in Formal Methods for Security

Engineering of secure systems is an arms race between attackers and system designers. In recent years, hardly a week goes by without the discovery of a new attack, and system designers scrambling to plug the holes. Formal methods are a means to break out of this arms race by ruling out entire classes of attacks once and for all.

In this seminar, students will learn to present, discuss, and summarize papers in different areas of formal methods for security. The seminar is split into two parts. The first part will take the form of reading sessions, where we lay the foundations of the topic. For the second part, each student is assigned a recent paper from the research area. Students will present their paper and will write a seminar paper on the topic assigned to them, taking into account connections to the topics discussed in the seminar.

Important Dates

First Meeting: Tuesday 23.10.2018, E1.1 Room 1.06, 12:15

During our first meeting, I will present a short overview of the seminar and we will schedule a convenient time for our regular meetings.

Requirements

Reading Group: In the reading group sessions, we discuss background papers that lay the foundations, or give an overview of the recent work on formal methods for security. Each paper will be presented informally by selected students, followed by a joint discussion. The list of papers for the reading group will be announced soon.

Talks: At the first reading group session, each participant will be assigned a topic. Each topic will be presented by the respective student, followed by joint discussion. For the discussions, it is important that every participant has read the paper(s) that are presented. The list of presentation topics will be announced soon.

Summary: At the end of the seminar we would like you to submit a summary of the seminar topics, including a comparison of your topic to the ones presented by other students.

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