Secure Systems Engineering

This course would cover the design and implementation of secure systems. There will be four parts in the course.

• The first part is on Binary Exploitation, where we dwell into vulnerabilities assoicated with C programs and how they can be exploited. Vulnerabilities would include buffer overflows, format string, heap vulnerabilities, etc. We dissect recent malware, like Heartbleed, Mirai, etc, to understand how they work.
  

• The second part is on designing a secure system. We discuss least privileges, information flow control, Linux kernel security, trusted execution environments, secure boot, and physically unclonable functions.
  

• The third part is on security assurance. We will look at techniques and standards by which one can certify a system to be secure.
  

• Finally, we explore new threats in cyber-security, such as Micro-architectural attacks, Hardware Security, etc.

Instructor

Chester Rebeiro

TAs

• Keerthi K (RISE Lab)

• Prithwish Basu Roy (RISE Lab)

• Vikash Kumar (RISE Lab)

• Ayalur Vedpuriswar Lakshmy (RISE Lab)

• Nipam Basumatary

Prerequisites

computer organization, assembly language programming for x86, operating systems, advanced programming in C, data structures and algorithms

Logistics

Classes will be held from 1/Feb/2021 in Slot D.

• Monday : 11:00 - 11:50 AM

• Tuesday : 10:00 - 10:50 AM

• Wednesday : 9:00 - 9:50 AM

• Thursday: 1:00 - 1:50 PM (will be used for Lab and Tutorials)

Schedule

Slides

Course Handout

1. Introduction

2. Binary Exploitation (Buffer overflows, W^X, canaries, ASLR, Softbound)

3. Binary Exploitation (Heartbleed, Format string vulnerabilities, integer overflow vulnerabilities, heap exploits)

4. Access Control Policies

5. Confinement

6. Trusted Execution Environments (Trustzone and SGX)

7. Micro-architectural Attacks