Topics in Computer Security

Spring 2021

This course is on computer security, and will cover state-of-the-art techniques for increasing the security and reliability of information and computer systems. This course will study both general computer security principals, and effective solutions to concrete security problems. Throughout the course, besides classical safety problems and mitigations, we will also discuss recent research developments and emerging security directions.

Potential topics include (but not limited to):

• General security principals: minimal privileges, isolations, sandbox, etc..
• Software security: set-UID, buffer overflows, ret-to-libc, format strings, race conditions, etc..
• Web security: CSRF, XSS, SQL-injection, browser security, etc..
• Network security: packet sniffing and spoofing, security for protocols at various layers: ARP, IP, TCP, VPN, DNS, SSL/TLS, HTTPS, etc..
• Emerging new security directions: AI security, IoT security, etc..