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Instructor:
Stephen McCamant
Office: 4-225E Keller Hall
E-Mail: mccamant@cs.umn.edu
Home page: http://www.cs.umn.edu/~mccamant
Office hours: TBA, in person.
Also by appointment.
Lecture Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4:00pm-5:15pm, 231 Smith Hall
Lab Schedule:
Section 002: Wednesdays 3:35-4:25pm, 1-250 Keller
Section 003: Wednesdays 4:40-5:30pm, 1-250 Keller
Section 004: Wednesdays 5:45-6:35pm, 1-250 Keller
Course Overview:
Computer Science 4271W is an elective-level undergraduate course that
introduces concepts of computer security with particular emphasis on
the design and implementation of secure software. The course covers
techniques to identify and exploit security threats, as well as
prevent or mitigate them, during software design, coding, testing, and
maintenance. It describes general patterns of vulnerabilities as well
specific problems in low-level software, operating system interaction,
use of cryptography, networked and web systems, identity and
authentication, and usability. As a writing intensive course, students
will also learn and practice techniques for effective written
communication about software security.
Goals and Objectives:
By the end of this course you should be able to:
These objectives address two student learning outcomes:
Can identify, define, and solve problems: In assignments and exercises you will be given descriptions of software systems and asked to identify potential security vulnerabilities, and methods to mitigate these vulnerabilities.
Can communicate effectively: It is not enough that individual developers understand security when coding. Issues such as the organization of a complex software system, how potentially adversarial inputs and actors can affect the system, and methods to mitigate these threats require communication among developers and between developers and other stakeholders. If a security-conscious developer cannot convey why a threat should be considered, or the way it works, or how to address a threat, the larger organization may still fail to devote enough effort to security improvement. Developing skills to communicate about software and threats is thus just as important as developing skills to find and address these threats. In this class you will regularly practice writing such descriptions in problem sets and project reports.
Prerequisites:
The prerequisite for this course is CSci 3081W, Software Design
and Development, and the course also depends on 3081's own
transitive prerequisites. Students should be comfortable reading
and writing code; especially in C, but other languages will also
be used on occasion such as in labs. Students should also have
experience working with the Unix/Linux command line. The
portions of the course that deal with low-level attacks and
defenses on software (buffer overflows, etc.), depend on some
familiarity with assembly language and how C programs are
compiled. These are covered in CSci 2021, which is transitively
a prerequisite for 3081, but this may be an area you should
consider reviewing if a while has passed since you took 2021. EE
2361 covers many of the same relevant topics from CSci 2021, but
because it uses a micro-controller architecture, you may want to
take some time outside of class to learn about the x86-64
architecture we'll use. CSci 4061 (Introduction to Operating
Systems) and CSci 4211 (Introduction to Computer Networks) are
not prerequisites: we will discuss the basic principles of
operating systems and networks relevant to security threats
against them.
Reading Schedule:
The course web site will have a schedule of the topics that will be
covered in each lecture. For some subject areas there will also be
relating reading materials covering the same topics. You will get the
most out of the lecture by reading the materials before coming to
class.
The material in the readings and the materials in lectures will not
match exactly: while the most important material will appear in both,
some points may appear only in the reading or only in the lecture, and
they're all fair game to appear on exams.
We'll post the slides from lectures on the web site, but
reviewing the slides is intended to supplement, not replace,
attending lecture.
Textbooks:
Because the area of computer security is changing quickly, it is hard
to produce a good textbook. I haven't yet found a textbook that I like
and which covers most or all of the material in the class, so the
course has no required textbooks. We will draw readings from a variety
of other public source which are either free of charge to everyone or
available via University licensing. However if you would like to
look over books relevant to the course material, here are two optional
recommendations:
Ross Anderson's Security Engineering, Third Edition (John Wiley & Sons) is a great book for understanding the adversarial perspective in security; it covers many of the course's main topics at a high level, as well as drawing on examples of security thinking outside strictly computer applications. It's also a lot more fun to read than the average CS textbook. However it doesn't go into as much technical detail as we will in many areas. I use it more heavily in 5271, so you may be able to find it via the campus bookstore, or various places online. The third edition includes some notable improvements since the previous second edition, but the majority of relevant material is also found in that edition. An advantage of the previous edition is that all the chapters are available online from the author's home page. Also, the campus libraries have acquired ebook access to an HTML edition of the book through the publisher's online portal. As the first edition is even older, it isn't recommended.
Adam Shostack's Threat Modeling: Designing for Security (Wiley), as the title suggests, focuses on threat modeling and security design concerns. The approach to threat modeling and dataflow diagrams we follow is based on Shostack's, so you can read this book if you are interested in a lot more detail on these topics than we'll have time for in class.
Mark Dowd, John McDonald, and Justin Schuh's The Art of Software Security Assessment: Identifying and Preventing Software Vulnerabilities has the most in-depth coverage I'm aware of on the process of auditing code for vulnerabilities, and related topics, so in some ways its the book that is closest to the course in topic coverage. However it is too out of date (2006), too long (1200 pages across two paper volumes), and too out of print (only an ebook is available for a reasonable price) for me to wholly recommend. I'm planning to assign parts of one of the most relevant chapters as a reading.
Including chapters from Anderson as discussed above, all the class readings are available to download and/or read online. Many are public downloads; a few, will have course-specific links from the Canvas page, or others, such as some academic papers, are licensed to the University via the libraries so you can access them directly if you're coming from a campus IP address, or from off campus you can use the library's proxy service and bookmarklet. Some other online resources will be mentioned in lecture notes, assignments, or on the class forum, and of course there's lots of information, some of it good, available online that you can find yourself.
Grading:
Grading for this course will be based on the following components:
Letter grades will be assigned using the following scale:
| Grade | Minimum Score |
| A | 92.00 |
| A- | 88.00 |
| B+ | 84.00 |
| B | 80.00 |
| B- | 76.00 |
| C+ | 72.00 |
| C | 68.00 |
| C- | 64.00 |
| D+ | 60.00 |
| D | 56.00 |
| F | (below 56.00) |
Collaboration and External Sources:
Discussing the course content with other students can be a very useful part of your learning experience: that is part of why we encourage/require you to collaborate in the labs, for instance. However it is up to you to structure that collaboration for the best results and to maximize everyone's learning.
On the other hand, we ask that you be more circumspect in discussing problem sets and projects with other students, so that everyone has the chance to grapple with the challenges on their own. The class isn't graded on a curve, so you aren't competing with other students: their failure will not improve your grade, and we'd like to maintain a generally friendly atmosphere. For instance it's okay to discuss ideas from the course at a general level that might apply to a homework (e.g., the concept of a buffer-overflow attack), or to help another group with a technical problem unrelated to the project itself ("I can't get my VM to boot"). But you should avoid giving specific suggestions that another student could use in place of figuring something out on their own ("you can overflow buffer foo by passing a 200-byte string to function bar"). And sharing code or prose that would be given as an answer to an assignment question is of course never okay.
Many assignments in the class will allow or even encourage the use of resources beyond the course readings and lecture notes, such as you might find in the library or on the Internet. However it is an important academic value, which we enforce rigorously in this class, that it is never acceptable to use another's work without properly acknowledging it. In problem sets and projects, you should acknowledge any external sources of inspiration or code directly in your answer. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism.
Use of Software Tools and Artificial Intelligence:
Software tools can be an important part of work in computer security. But in some cases we will specifically ask that you do assignments without the most powerful tools, so you can get a better understanding for yourself of what's going on. Check the instructions for individual assignments or ask before using a tool if you are unsure. You should be particularly careful with AI-based tools that provide a general question-answering capability (include large language models like ChatGPT), since they can more easily be used in ways that would bypass the learning intent of an assignment. A good starting point is to think about consulting an AI tool in the same way you would think about asking another person who is not the course staff a question. It is fine to ask questions of an AI for your general understanding of a concept, or on a non-graded activity like a lab where we also encourage human collaboration. But don't use an AI tool in a way that substitutes for your won understanding or effort in a graded assignment. Of course it is also in your interest to watch out for the possibility of an AI-tool providing incorrect information. Our default policy for written assignments that are submitted electronically is that you can use spell-checking or grammar-checking tools that given advice on the mechanics of writing, but not more sophisticated AI tools that could understand the subject matter of the assignment. As an exception, you will be allowed to make free use of AI-based tools on the projects, as long as you explain what help they provided. This will be described in more detail in those assignments.
Academic Integrity Policies: By the nature of this class, we will often discuss techniques that could be used to compromise the security of certain computer systems. However, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU NEVER APPLY THESE TECHNIQUES TO A COMPUTER WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE COMPUTER'S OWNER. In particular you should never attempt to attack the security of computers that belong to CSE Labs, the department, the University, or an unsuspecting classmate. If we learn that a student has unethically exploited a vulnerability discussed in class, THAT STUDENT WILL FAIL. This is in addition to any University-level, department-level or legal penalties such an action may be subject to.
You are also expected to do your own academic work and cite sources as appropriate. Failing to do so is scholastic dishonesty. Scholastic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to: plagiarizing; cheating on assignments or examinations; engaging in unauthorized collaboration on academic work; taking, acquiring, or using test materials without faculty permission; submitting false or incomplete records of academic achievement; acting alone or in cooperation with another to falsify records or to obtain dishonestly grades, honors, awards, or professional endorsement; altering, forging, or misusing a University academic record; or fabricating or falsifying data, research procedures, or data analysis. A student found responsible for scholastic dishonesty will at a minimum receive a grade of 0 for the assignment in question and be reported to the campus-wide Office for Community Standards (OCS). More serious offenses will receive a grade of F (or N) for the course and be subject to additional sanctions from the University.
Other Applicable Policies: There are a number of other University-wide policies that apply to this course which you should be familiar with. This list is an abridged summary of longer policies which you can find linked from a University-wide page:
(This syllabus is based in part on documents used in previous editions of 4271 and 5271 written by the instructor and by Prof. Nick Hopper.)