ECE 59500 - IoT/Edge Security

Course Details

Lecture Hours: 3 Credits: 3

Areas of Specialization:

  • Computer Engineering

Normally Offered:

Each Spring

Campus/Online:

On-campus only

Requisites:

ECE 30861, ECE 36200; concurrent ECE 40400

Requisites by Topic:

General software development, Python programming or background with developing embedded systems

Catalog Description:

The course covers security engineering of IoT/Edge systems. Topics such as threat modelling, secure design, and secure communication paradigms in IoT are covered.

Required Text(s):

None.

Recommended Text(s):

None.

Learning Outcomes

A student who successfully fulfills the course requirements will have demonstrated an ability to:

  • Describe security challenges concerning communication, protecting on-device data, tampering, and attestation in real-world IoT systems.
  • Can identify and describe the security threats prevented by using edge computing in IoT systems.
  • Apply security design principles, specifically certificate-based authentication and role-based access control, to enable authenticated access to IoT devices. access control, to enable authenticated access to IoT devices.
  • Describe and identify security standards and ethics (ISO/IEC, NIST, Cybersecurity Improvement Act) related to the design of IoT systems
  • Given a description and requirements of a system, students can create it with a given set of IoT devices (2-3) and sensors (1-2) using a computing platform (e.g., Amazon AWS, Azure).
  • Given specific requirements, students are able to develop secure (with respect to secure data transmission, local data processing, and integration with cloud services) IoT applications that can span a single device or multiple devices (2-3), depending on the requirements.

Lecture Outline:

Week Week
1 Introduction to IoT and Edge Computing, Architecture, and Initial Security Challenges
1 Cryptography and Secure Communication Protocols
1 Security Advantages of Edge Computing
2 Securing IoT Devices: Authentication and Access Control
2 Secure Firmware Updates and Patching
1 Industry Security Standards
2 Practical IoT Systems, Components, and Troubleshooting
2 Secure IoT Application Development and Security Testing
1 Continuous Security Monitoring, Tools, and Incident Response
1 Ethical and Legal Implications of IoT (GDPR, CCPA)
1 Governance Frameworks for Ethical and Secure IoT Use

Assessment Method:

Quizzes, projects, exams. (11/2025)