COIT20262 - Advanced Network Security

General Information

Unit Synopsis

In this unit, you will learn how to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information and network services in business organisations. You will study the fundamental cryptographic techniques that many of the security mechanisms are built upon. You will also study network security attacks, including malware, denial of service, and application vulnerabilities, and the corresponding countermeasures. Through computer laboratory activities, you will gain hands-on experience in analysing attacks and deploying defences, including securing web applications, establishing access control mechanisms, and applying encryption in wired and wireless networks.

Details

Level Postgraduate
Unit Level 9
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 2
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Prerequisite: COIT20261 Network Routing and Switching

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 2 - 2025

Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Rockhampton
Sydney

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

This information will not be available until 8 weeks before term.
To see assessment details from an earlier availability, please search via a previous term.

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 1 - 2024 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 82.76% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 37.18% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Student emails
Feedback
Virtual Box was difficult to use on the latest Mac version.
Recommendation
Make it clear that Windows is the only environment supported by the teaching team as the computer labs only have Windows. Explore the possibility of migration to the cloud environment from VirtualBox.
Action Taken
It has been included in the Unit Profile under term specific information section. Microsoft Azure has been explored and may be used as a replacement for VirtualBox.
Source: Teaching team
Feedback
Update the assessments to improve the complex computing coverage.
Recommendation
Review the assessments and update it with more open-ended and analytical questions.
Action Taken
Open-ended and analytical questions have been included for both assignments 1 and 2.
Source: Student feedback
Feedback
Students found the in-class quizzes challenging because they varied greatly in terms of difficulty and time required to complete them.
Recommendation
Examine the timing and questions of every in-class quiz and provide students more guidance ahead of time.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Student feedback, including Unit Evaluation
Feedback
Applications such as VirtualBox, which are utilised in the unit, are incompatible with Mac computers, posing a challenge for few students in completing their assignments.
Recommendation
Mention clearly that Windows is the only environment supported by the teaching team as the computer labs only have Windows. Consider to migrate from VirtualBox to cloud environment.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes
This information will not be available until 8 weeks before term.
To see Learning Outcomes from an earlier availability, please search via a previous term.