CE 40-817: Advanced Network Security

Sharif University of Technology

Fall 2025

Instructor
Solmaz Salimi, s[dot][salimi][at][sharif][dot][edu]

TA(s)
Kasra Abdollahi, kasra[dot][abdolahi1379][at][sharif][dot][edu]

Lectures
Sunday/Tuesday 10:30 to 12:00, Room 402

Join the Discord server for announcements: discord.gg/WgW5SeHQ

Course Description

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• This course explores how to secure modern networks at Internet scale.
• Each week features a short Recent Trends and AI Angle spotlight.

Course Schedule

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Week 1

7/20

7/22

Week 2

7/27

7/29

Week 3

8/04

8/06

Week 4

8/11

8/13

Week 5

8/18

8/20

Week 6

8/25

8/27

Week 7

9/02

9/04

Week 8

9/09

9/11

Week 9

9/16

9/18

Week 10

9/23

9/25

Week 11

9/30

10/02

Week 12

10/07

10/09

Final

11/05

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Sun

7/20

Foundations, Ethics and Threat Landscape: Foundations and models [Slides]

Topic

• Course introduction and logistics
• Internet trust boundaries and assets
• Attacker capability sets and goals
• Risk framing for confidentiality, integrity, availability and privacy

AI Angle

• SoK: A Pragmatic Assessment of Machine Learning for Network Intrusion Detection

Optional Papers

1. RAPTOR: Routing Attacks on Privacy in Tor
2. Inferring Internet Denial-of-Service Activity
3. Spamalytics: An Empirical Analysis of Spam Marketing Conversion

Tue

7/22

Foundations, Ethics and Threat Landscape: Measurement and ethics [Slides]

Topic

• Data sources across control plane, data plane and endpoints
• Consent, minimization and retention in practice
• Incident case studies and lessons learned

AI Angle

• Membership Inference Attacks Against Machine Learning Models
• Deep Learning with Differential Privacy

Optional Papers

1. Understanding the Ethical Frameworks of Internet Measurement Studies

Sun

7/27

Visibility and Telemetry in an Encrypted Internet: Signals and blind spots [Slides]

Topic

• Residual visibility under encryption including metadata, timing and endpoints
• Endpoint versus network versus control-plane telemetry
• Privacy and policy constraints

AI Angle

• HyperVision: Detecting Unknown Encrypted Malicious Traffic in Real-Time

Optional Papers

1. Subverting Website Fingerprinting Defenses
2. Bro: A System for Detecting Network Intruders in Real-Time

Tue

7/29

Visibility and Telemetry in an Encrypted Internet: Detection reasoning [Slides]

Topic

• Signature versus anomaly analysis
• Handling false positives and false negatives
• Closing the loop from detection to response to hardening

AI Angle

• DeepLog: Anomaly Detection and Diagnosis from System Logs through Deep Learning
• xNIDS: Explaining DNN-based Network Intrusion Detection Systems

Optional Papers

1. The Butterfly Effect in Intrusion Detection

Sun

8/04

Secure Transport Protocols: TLS 1.3, QUIC and PKI: Protocol properties [Slides]

Topic

• TLS 1.3 handshake and forward secrecy
• Session resumption risks
• QUIC model and ECH implications

AI Angle

• Rosetta: Robust TLS Encrypted Traffic Classification
• Imperfect Forward Secrecy: How Diffie-Hellman Fails in Practice

Optional Papers

1. The SSL and TLS Ecosystem in Practice

Tue

8/06

Secure Transport Protocols: TLS 1.3, QUIC and PKI: PKI and operations [Slides]

Topic

• Certificate issuance, revocation and transparency
• Common failure modes and downgrade surfaces
• Transport layer PQ readiness

AI Angle

• Bamboozling Certificate Authorities with BGP
• Let’s Encrypt: An Automated Certificate Authority at Internet Scale

Optional Papers

1. Certificate Transparency in the Wild

Sun

8/11

Identity, Access and Zero-Trust Networking: Identity and policy [Slides]

Assignment Release Assignment 1 Released

Topic

• User, device and service identity
• Authentication and authorization patterns
• Device posture and continuous verification

AI Angle

• A Comprehensive Formal Security Analysis of OAuth 2.0

Optional Papers

1. TopoGuard: Security Analysis of Topology Discovery in Software-Defined Networking

Tue

8/13

Identity, Access and Zero-Trust Networking: Architectures [Slides]

Topic

• VPN fit and alternatives
• Zero-trust access patterns and gateway placement
• Policy distribution, auditability, usability and performance

AI Angle

• TopoGuard: Security Analysis of Topology Discovery in Software-Defined Networking

Optional Papers

1. The Most Dangerous Code in the World: Validating SSL Certificates in Non-Browser Software

Sun

8/18

Name Resolution Security and Privacy: Threats and defenses [Slides]

Topic

• DNS spoofing, poisoning and cache issues
• DNSSEC chain of trust and validation

AI Angle

• SAD DNS: IP Fragmentation-based DNS Cache Poisoning
• MaginotDNS: Defending Against Malicious Delegations in DNS

Optional Papers

1. A Comprehensive Measurement Study of Domain Generating Malware

Tue

8/20

Name Resolution Security and Privacy: Modern DNS and privacy [Slides]

Topic

• DoH and DoT trade-offs
• SVCB and HTTPS records and service discovery
• Resolver privacy and telemetry choices

AI Angle

• Encrypted DNS ⇒ Privacy? A Traffic Analysis Perspective

Optional Papers

1. Stealthy Hijacking of Active Domains through DNS Hosting Provider Infrastructures

Sun

8/25

Routing and Interdomain Security: Control plane [Slides]

Assignment Due Assignment 1 Due 23:59 AoE

Topic

• BGP path selection and policy
• Hijacks and leaks taxonomy
• RPKI and Route Origin Validation

AI Angle

• ARTEMIS: Neutralizing BGP Hijacking within a Minute
• Understanding Route Origin Validation (ROV) Deployment in the Real World and Why MANRS Action 1 Is Not Followed

Optional Papers

1. On the Risk of BGP Route Leaks

Tue

8/27

Routing and Interdomain Security: Operations and ecosystem [Slides]

Assignment Release Assignment 2 Released

Topic

• Peering and transit relationships
• Filtering and monitoring practices
• Telemetry for integrity and recovery

AI Angle

• A Study of Prefix Hijacking and Interception in the Internet

Optional Papers

1. BGPStream: a software framework for live and historical BGP data analysis

Sun

9/02

Data Plane Policy and Middleboxes under Encryption: Policy and segmentation [Slides]

Topic

• Segmentation and least privilege
• Access control across layers
• Ingress and egress exposure reduction

AI Angle

• Transparent Microsegmentation in Smart Home IoT Networks

Optional Papers

1. Effective Anomaly Detection with Scarce Training Data

Tue

9/04

Data Plane Policy and Middleboxes under Encryption: Limits and evasion [Slides]

Topic

• Encrypted protocols and middleboxes including QUIC and ECH
• Evasion via fragmentation, protocol nuance and traffic morphing
• Balancing efficacy, privacy and performance

AI Angle

• Traffic Morphing: An Efficient Defense Against Statistical Traffic Analysis

Optional Papers

1. Format-Transforming Encryption and Its Impact on Traffic Analysis

Sun

9/09

Availability and DDoS Resilience: Attack landscape [Slides]

Topic

• Volumetric, reflection and amplification and state exhaustion
• Botnets and attack infrastructure
• Impact measurement and blast radius

AI Angle

• Understanding the Mirai Botnet

Optional Papers

1. Amplification Hell: Revisiting Network Protocols for DDoS Abuse

Tue

9/11

Availability and DDoS Resilience: Defense playbooks [Slides]

Assignment Due Assignment 2 Due 23:59 AoE

Topic

• Anycast and CDN strategies
• Rate limiting and admission control
• RTBH and FlowSpec and SLAs

AI Angle

• MiddlePolice: Toward Enforcing Destination-Defined Policies in the Middle of the Internet

Optional Papers

1. SIBRA: Scalable Internet Bandwidth Reservation Architecture

Sun

9/16

Wireless and Short-Range Security including Jamming: Wi-Fi and BLE security [Slides]

Topic

• WPA3 transition pitfalls and Dragonfly
• BLE pairing modes and privacy
• Management frames and roaming

AI Angle

• Dragonblood: Analyzing the Dragonfly Handshake of WPA3 and EAP-pwd
• BLESA: Spoofing Attacks against Reconnections in Bluetooth Low Energy

Optional Papers

1. Release the Kraken: New KRACKs in the 802.11 Standard

Tue

9/18

Wireless and Short-Range Security including Jamming: Jamming and RF threats [Slides]

Exam Midterm

Topic

• Barrage, reactive and protocol-aware jamming
• Detection and mitigation strategies
• Regulatory and safety considerations

AI Angle

• Security Analysis and Improvements for IEEE 802.11i

Optional Papers

1. BIAS: Bluetooth Impersonation Attacks

Sun

9/23

Cellular and Mobile Core Security (LTE and 5G): Architecture and trust boundaries [Slides]

Assignment Release Assignment 3 Released

Topic

• Attach and paging flows and identifiers
• Roaming and interconnect risks from SS7 and Diameter to 5G
• Slice and edge threat considerations

AI Angle

• LTEInspector: A Systematic Approach for Adversarial Testing of 4G LTE

Optional Papers

1. FirmWire: Transparent Dynamic Analysis for Cellular Baseband Firmware

Tue

9/25

Cellular and Mobile Core Security (LTE and 5G): Policy and assurance [Slides]

Topic

• Slice isolation goals
• Exposure at UPF and control functions
• What to verify and where to verify it

AI Angle

• 5GReasoner: A Property-Directed Security and Privacy Analysis Framework for 5G

Optional Papers

1. A Formal Analysis of 5G Authentication

Sun

9/30

IoT and Edge Systems Security: Systems and protocols [Slides]

Topic

• Identity and onboarding at scale
• Update and attestation expectations
• MQTT and CoAP at a high level

AI Angle

• SoK: Security Evaluation of Home-Based IoT Deployments

Optional Papers

1. A Large-Scale Analysis of the Security of Embedded Firmwares

Tue

10/02

IoT and Edge Systems Security: Governance and risk [Slides]

Topic

• Exposure reduction with brokers, gateways and data diodes
• Safety and security trade-offs
• Lifecycle risk from provisioning to decommissioning

AI Angle

• Kitsune: An Ensemble of Autoencoders for Online Network Intrusion Detection

Optional Papers

1. Faster and Better: Detecting Vulnerabilities in Linux-based IoT Firmware with Optimized Reaching Definition Analysis

Sun

10/07

Privacy, Anonymity and Future Internet Directions: Privacy and anonymity [Slides]

Topic

• Goals and limits of traffic analysis
• Threat models for anonymity systems
• Responsible evaluation and disclosure

AI Angle

• Deep Fingerprinting: Undermining Website Fingerprinting Defenses with Deep Learning

Optional Papers

1. HORNET: High-speed Onion Routing at the Network Layer

Tue

10/09

Privacy, Anonymity and Future Internet Directions: Where we are headed [Slides]

Topic

• Path-aware networking and policy-rich routing
• Encrypted everywhere future across visibility, safety and governance
• Course synthesis and design principles

AI Angle

• SCION: Scalability, Control, and Isolation on Next-Generation Networks

Optional Papers

1. The SCION Internet Architecture

Wed

11/05

Exam Final Exam