After successful completion of the course, students are able to:

• identify common vulnerabilities in applications and computer systems, and assess their security implications;
• apply secure programming practices, analysis techniques, and defensive mechanisms during the development and deployment of secure software and systems;
• select and effectively use cryptographic algorithms in systems and applications depending on the desired security properties.

• Fundamental security principles (confidentiality, integrity, availability) and design principles for secure systems
• Foundations of cryptography: symmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithms, modes of operations, padding schemes, hash functions, message authentication codes, digital signatures, key exchange protocols, authenticated encryption
• Public key infrastructures (digital certificates, components of a PKI, certificate transparency) and the TLS protocol
• Authentication (passwords, OTPs, challenge-response methods, biometrics) and access control mechanisms (access control matrix, ACL, capabilities)
• Network security: reflection and amplification attacks, spoofing, firewall systems, VPN, Tor
• Web security: background (languages, HTTP protocol, cookies, Same Origin Policy, framing), server-side attacks (SQL and NoSQL injections, command injections, path traversals, access control, and business logic vulnerabilities), client-side attacks (Cross-Site Request Forgeries, Cross-Site Scripting, DOM clobbering), countermeasures (tokenization, prepared statements, etc.), security policies (CSP, CORS), tools for testing and exploitation of web applications (Burp Suite)
• System security: background (introduction to C and assembly x86-64, debugger, other tools for program analysis), basic memory corruption vulnerabilities (overwrite of variables and function pointers, shellcode, overwrite of the return address), return-oriented programming, GOT overwrite, mitigation and protection techniques (DEP, stack canaries, ASLR, PIE), basics of heap overflows, tools for the exploitation of memory corruption vulnerabilities

Analysis techniques for the verification of applications and computer systems

In this semester the course will be offered in presence. During the lectures, the contents of the course are explained, together with practical examples.

Students are required to complete practical assignments, through which they can assimilate the concepts learned during the course. Every assignment typically consists of a vulnerable application that students must exploit, using the techniques shown in the course, in order to get access to sensitive data (a so-called flag), which is a proof of successful hacking attempt. Additionally, students must answers some questions about, among others, how they solved the problem and how the exploited vulnerability can be fixed to prevent further attacks.

We will offer periodically tutor hours to support students during the resolution of the homeworks. Tutor hours are offered both in place and online.

ECTS Breakdown (6 ECTS = 150 hours)

Lectures (27 hours)
Homeworks (90 hours)
Preparation for the exam (30 hours)
Exam (3 hours)

Grading is based on the homeworks and the result of written tests on the contents of the course.

The tests will take place in the lecture hall: if this is not possible (e.g., because of a lockdown or restrictions concerning the attendance at the university), tests will take place online over Zoom meetings and a camera (either on the laptop or on an additional device like a smartphone) must be active for the entire duration of the exam.

None