CSC 429: Computer Security

 

CSC 429

Semester: Second  semester 1446H - Spring 2025

Course title: Computer Security

Credit hours: 3

Instructor: Dr. Iehab AL Rassan  [e-mail]

Office: 2179

Office Phone: [phone]

E-mail: [e-mail]

Office Hours: Monday 1 P.M –2 P.M, (This might change – always check my home page first)

Course website :Section1 (10 AM to 12) :https://piazza.com/ksu.edu.sa/spring2025/csc429sec1/home

                             Section2 (1 PM-3 PM): https://piazza.com/ksu.edu.sa/spring2025/csc429sec2/home

 

 

Course Objectives

The objective of this course is to provide the fundamentals of theories and methods 

of computer security including maintaining confidentiality, availability and 

integrity, threat and vulnerabilities. In addition, it introduces method of public-key 

encryption, symmetric encryption, access control, user authentication, security 

policy, risk assessments, network security, operating system security, and intrusion 

detection systems.

 

Pre-requisites

CSC 329: Computer Networks

 

 

Main Textbooks

[1] Computer Security: Principles and Practice, W. Stallings and L. Brown, 4th 

Edition, 2017, ISBN-13: 978-0134794105.

Additional Textbooks

[2] Introduction to Cryptography and Network Security, Behrouz A. Forouzan, 

ISBN-13 9780073327532, McGraw-Hill Forouzan networking series

[3] Introduction to Computer Security, Matt Bishop, 1st Edition, 2004, ISBN-

13: 978-0321247445.

[4] Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems, 

Ross J. Anderson ,3rd Edition, 2020, ISBN-13: 978-1119642787.

[5] Principles of Information Security, M. Whitman and H. Mattord, 6th Edition, 

2017, ISBN-13: 978-1337102063.

 

Course Schedule

14 weeks of three 50-minute lectures per week, in addition to 14 of 50-minute 

tutorials.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grading :

Assignments: 10

Project: 15

Quizzes: 10

Midterm: 25

Final: 40

Assignments :

- You have to post one question and its answer on the course website after every lecture. Also, you are required to evaluate someone else’s posted question and its answer from the previous lecture, giving score out of 5.

- All other assignments will be posted on LMS.

Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs)

The students will be able to:

1. Describe principles, requirements, and policies of computer security.

2. Recognize and differentiate the different types of security threats, attacks 

and their implications.

3. Define and compare the various access control techniques.

4. Explain and analyze symmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithms and 

their applications in digital signatures, and authentication.

5. Identify the major risk assessment approaches, techniques and tools used 

to discover network, web, and system vulnerabilities and their 

countermeasures.

6. Demonstrate ability to effectively communicate principles and policies of 

security, and explain their applications in various contexts through class 

presentation, assignments and course project.

 

 

Expected Performance Criteria

The students are expected to solve theoretical and practical questions in tutorials, 

programming project, pass midterm exam, and final exam based on class materials.

Course Policies

• Students who miss more than 25% of lectures will be denied from entering the 

final exam.

• No late assignments will be accepted.

• Plagiarism and cheating in exams, assignments or project are NOT tolerated

and will results in receiving ZERO in the activity and may result in FAILING 

the course. In such event, King Saud University policies on plagiarism will be 

exercised.

• Submitting AI-generated content in assignments or project is considered 

plagiarism.