To All MSSI Students:

As planned for the second round of student projects in Spring 2014 in collaboration with NSA, this announcement is to seek self-notification from those who are interested in such projects. With this notification you must commit significant effort into this project. You can use it to satisfy the MSSI capstone project requirement, and if so you may use Fall 2014 if deemed necessary to fully fulfill that requirement.

The following is the current description about the potential project topics that can be further developed. There will be more data/materials available as per the discussion with our NSA partner. We have IDAPro licenses installed at the JHUISI computer lab for the use by these projects.
"For this project you will have the opportunity to research a relevant topic in reverse-engineering that interests you. You may choose to cover (in great technical detail) one of the following:
1.    Reverse engineer a technically noteworthy software exploit. Develop your own payload to deploy via the exploit and test it against the vulnerable software package.
2.    The NSA Senior Project problem from Spring 2013 - "Finding Algorithmic Bits in Binary Haystack" that tries to determine whether an executable program contains a instantiation of a particular algorithm.
3.    Reverse engineer a significant piece of malware. Repurpose the malware to perform an additional function of your choosing.

A final report and briefing will be due at the end of the semester. If you select (1) or (3), your research should not only detail how the exploit or malware works, but also propose methods for how one might prevent/detect the exploit/malware in general. What are the advantages/disadvantages of your approach? Describe the relevant academic and/or commercial research that applies to your project and provide references to any material you leveraged during your research. "

If you are interested in working on these projects please email me a current resume with all the relevant course/project experience by December 6, Friday. Based on review and interview we may initiate multiple teams.