Information Security Laboratory

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
--Chinese proverb

The Information Security Laboratory provides an environment for educational and research-related activities in information security. It was established 2003 by David Basin and Michael Näf and further improved by Patrick Schaller and Michael Schläpfer.

The educational goal of the Information Security Laboratory is to offer high-quality hands-on experience and education. The lab focuses on teaching defensive techniques used to establish, verify, and maintain the security of IT systems. In order to effectively show the need for different security mechanisms along with their effectivity and impact, the corresponding offensive techniques will be presented and analyzed. All offensive techniques are used for illustrative and educational purposes only and are usually chosen to be rather simple. Lab users will use their knowledge and skills to design and implement more secure IT systems.

The lab's first practical course is focused on general principles for building secure systems, in particular operating system and application security (course web site). Future courses will broaden the scope of topics covered, including digital forensics and security testing. These courses will be offered to students at ETH and industry as part of our ZISC activities.

Please refer to the Information Security Group's research section and to the group members' personal web pages for an overview of the various research activities. The lab's infrastructure is used as a testbed for some of these projects.

Please contact Michael Schläpfer with any enquiries.