Introducing Cryptography Course in Computer Science Undergraduate Curricula

摘要

With the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web, Information Assurance (IA) has become very important and crucial. To ensure the security of information in increasingly prevalent e-commerce, e-business, and to protect private data from hackers and saboteurs, professionals should have sound knowledge in the area of information assurance. Among the others, cryptography is one of the key techniques that ensure confidentiality and integrity of information. It is essential to establish a cryptography course, as part of the information assurance curricula to provide computer science majors such knowledge. Traditionally, courses in cryptography have been heavily mathematical in nature and are usually offered in the graduate level. This paper proposes the introduction of cryptography course in Computer Science at undergraduate level as part of our Information Assurance curricula. To make the proposed course suitable for the undergraduate majors, we skip some complicate mathematical theory and algorithms and include more cryptography protocols, techniques, and applications. This course will provide students majoring in computer science a broad background in Cryptography for Information Assurance, which has become an essential part of software development in the present day insecure world.