The Software Evaluation Group is composed of a number of students and faculty within the COAST Laboratory at Purdue University who are interested in evaluating computer security software.

Purpose of the Group

The purposes for the Software Evaluation Group within COAST are:

  1. To gain direct experience in the installation, evaluation, configuration and usage of different security software packages.
  2. To provide a common software evaluation form for evaluating publically available software currently on the COAST archive and in the commercial realm.
  3. To install and configure software to protect and monitor COAST machines.

Near-Term Goals

Our group has a number of different near-term goals for this project, including:

  • Finding an appropriate list of objective criteria for evaluation of security related software.
  • Evaluating different commercial and public-domain security software, to make the information useful to people looking for software to use for the protection, monitoring, evaluation of their machines.

Related Information

Current status

The group started its activities recently, and has currently achieved the following:

  • Completion of the initial version of the evaluation form.
  • Initial evaluation of the Security Analysis Tool for Auditing Networks (SATAN) and Tripwire.

Sponsors

Members of the Group

The Software Evaluation Group is composed of the following COAST students and faculty:

  • Gene Spafford, Director
  • Jai Sundar Balasubramaniyan, Graduate student
  • Todd O'Boyle, Undergraduate Student
COAST Software Evaluation Project Group