The Institut d'Informatique is pleased to announce
that the Francqui Foundation has attributed a Belgian Francqui Chair
on the subject
Software Security to
Prof. Frank Piessens.
The lecture series will take place during spring 2007.
Most software developed today runs in an Internet-connected, and hence possibly
hostile environment. As a consequence, it is generally recognized that it is
important to pay attention to security aspects during the development of software.
However, secure software development is hard, for a number of reasons.
First, the technologies used to counter security threats are complex. Understanding
the security guarantees offered, and the assumptions made by the wide variety
of software security technologies available today is challenging.
Also, defining the security requirements of a given software product, and realizing
these requirements with a selection of security technologies is hard.
Finally, implementation bugs in almost any part of a software application
can potentially undermine the security of the application.
This lecture series will discuss these issues from the point of view of the
software engineer. The most relevant security technologies are described
at a level of detail suitable for software architects and developers.
Next, security-relevant enhancements of typical software development
processes are discussed. In particular, the focus will be on security
requirements, on secure design, and on avoiding implementation vulnerabilities.
Each lecture takes place on a Friday, from 14h to 17h, at the
Institut d'Informatique of
the University of Namur. The opening lecture will be followed by a drink.
- 16/2: Opening Lecture: The challenge of building secure software
- 23/2: Software security: the programming language matters
- 09/3: Fundamentals of authentication and access control
- 16/3: Cryptography for software engineers: Primitives
- 23/3: Cryptography for software engineers: Protocols
- 20/4: Authentication and access control in distributed systems
- 27/4: Security requirements and secure design
- 04/5: Implementation vulnerabilities:examples and countermeasures
Frank Piessens is a professor at the Department of Computer Science
of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
His research interests lie in software security, including security
in operating systems and middleware, architectures, applications,
Java and .NET, and software interfaces to security technologies.
He is an active participant in both fundamental research and industrial
application-driven projects, provides consultancy to industry on
distributed system security and serves on programme committees for
various security-related international scientific conferences.
His scientific publications are available from his homepage.
Frank teaches software security at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,
and at various academic and industrial conferences. He is responsible
for the software security option in the computer science master program
of his university, and is the academic coordinator of the
Secure
Application Development series of courses.
Practical Info
Participation to the lecture series is free of charge. Nevertheless, you
are kindly invited to register by sending an email to
Mme. Henrard
containing your name, affiliation and contact information. If you would
like to obtain a visitor's parking card, please include information on
make, model and license plate number of your car.
The lectures will take place in room I2 in the building of the Institut
d'Informatique (ground floor). See
here for more
information on how to reach the University of Namur and the Institut d'Informatique.