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About

This course focuses on computer security, covering a wide range of topics on both the "defensive" and "offensive" side of this field. Among these will be systems security and exploitation (buffer overflows, race conditions, SQL injection, etc), access control and authentication, covert channels, network security, language-based security, denial-of-service, privacy and anonymity. The goal of the course is to provide an appreciation of how to think adversarially with respect to computer systems as well as an appreciation of how to reason about attacks and defenses.

To complete the projects in this course, you will need the ability to develop software programs using the C language, and some understanding of x86 assembly, JavaScript, PHP and SQL. We will not reach these in class and you will be expected to learn them on your own. If you don't know C, K&R's The C Programming Language is a great go to, but the Hacking book is probably enough and covers some x86 assembly too.

Class details

Textbook

We will occasionally be assinging readings from Ross Anderson's Security Engineering and various other online resources and papers. We may also assign optional reading from Jon Erickson's Hacking: The Art of Exploitation.

Course Staff

Grading

  • 30% Homeworks assignments
  • 30% Midterm exam
  • 40% Final exam
  • +5% Participation in class and online
Homework and programming labs

We will have homework assignments that are meant to both reinforce your knowledge of the concepts covered in lecture and get you to think about security in more depth, beyond what is covered lecture.

You are expected to work on the assignments by yourself. You may discuss the assignments with students from the course, in general, but not any specific solution. There are no late days, but you will receive an additional 10% if you turn in your assignment by the early date.

If you consult anything (books, academic papers, internet resources, people not in your group) when working on the assignments, note this in your submission. We encourage outside learning but expect you to not seek out specific details about a solution -- anything submitted should be considered your own work. Similarly, you are expected to not publish or otherwise share your solutions at any point (even after the class is over). If you are unsure about what is allowed, please ask the course staff.

Exams

The midterm exam will be held in class on February 13th. The midterm is closed-book, but you may use a double-sided cheat sheet (letter-size).

The final exam will be held on March 20th in Solis 104 from 7:00PM-9:59PM. You must take the exam at this time and location. The final is closed-book, but you may use 2 double-sided cheat sheets (letter-size).

The exams will make up 70% of your grade. Since the final is cumulative your midterm grade will be calculated as:

midterm > 0 ?  max(final, midterm) : 0

This means that (1) you basically get a second chance if you don't so well on the midterm and (2) you must show up to both the midterm and the final. If you need to miss either exam because of a documented medical emergency, contact the instructor immediately.

Participation/pre-lecture readings

Before each class there will be some assigned reading. You are expected to do the reading and have at least a vague understanding of the concepts that will be discussed in class. This will allow us to spend the lecture time to solidify your understanding. Asking and answering questions in class, on Piazza, or during office hours counts towards your class participation.

Acknowledgements

The course structure and many of the ideas and slides are influenced or directly from Kirill Levchenko, Dan Boneh, Stefan Savage, Hovav Shacham, and John Mitchell.

Academic integrity and student conduct

By taking this course, you implicitly agree to abide by the UCSD policies on Integrity of Scholarship and Student Conduct. University rules on integrity of scholarship and code of conduct are taken seriously and will be enforced.