Cyber Security

The course overviews principles, concepts, methods, and best practices in computer systems security. Students acquire background and hands-on experience in designing secure computer systems, study attacks and defense methods in computer systems, develop and test code to explore vulnerabilities, and apply practical defenses against software and hardware attacks. Topics covered include hardware primitives, operating systems abstractions, system-level attacks and defenses, side channel attacks and mitigations, and secure systems engineering.

The course addresses the challenge of safeguarding privacy in data-intensive domains such as the Internet of Things and Big Data, focusing on technical solutions amidst the various dimensions of privacy ranging from juridical to societal and economical. We will explore potential techniques for building new platforms, services, and tools that protect users' privacy. The study of promising component technologies ranging from advances in anonymous communication and identity management to theoretical tools like differential privacy and cryptography will be the core of this course.

The course provides an overview of concepts, methods, and best practices in network security. Students will acquire background and hands-on experience in securing networking and communication systems. The focus lies on technologies, protocols, attacks, and defenses. Starting from a review of common vulnerabilities and attack scenarios, we will discuss the fundamentals of security engineering and their application in system design and finally review tools and methods to assess and test communication infrastructure from a security perspective. Knowledge activation and the transfer from conceptual understanding towards practical experience will be further facilitated by students implementing their own attack or defense tools on selected topics and conducting measurements on the effectiveness of attack and defense schemes.