System Security SS12

Lecture: Thu, 13:15-15:00, CAB  G 11
Exercises: Fri, 10:15-12:00, CAB G 11 (must be handed in on the following Thursday, no later than 13:30)

Course responsible: Prof. Srdjan Capkun, ETHZ, (capkuns@inf.ethz.ch)

Teaching Assistants: Dr. Elli Androulaki Ramya Jayaram Masti, Nils Ole Tippenhauer (SysSec-Exercise@lists.inf.ethz.ch)

Lecture start: Thursday, 23.2.12
Lecture end: Thursday, 31.5.12
No lectures on: 12.4. (Easter),17.5 (Ascension)
Duration: 13 weeks

Exercises start: Friday, 24.2.12
Exercises end: Friday, 25.5.12
No exercises on: 6./13.4. (Easter)
12 Exercise sessions in total.

Testat: 80% of exercises. If an examination is taken, all 11 exercises will count towards 20% of the exam grade.
Exam: oral, 20 minutes
Literature recommendations: Security in Computing, Pfleeger; Security Engineering, Anderson; plus special on literature list

Oral exam schedule

The oral exams are going to take 20 minutes each. The oral exam is not necessary if you don't need a grade ("Schein").
In the case that you cannot make it to the exam for any reason, please contact the Pruefungsplanstelle (+41 44 632 20 68).

Exercise schedule and material

The solutions must be handed in on Thursdays, no later than 13:30. Exceptions to this rule are explicitely stated below. After the lecture on Thursdays the solutions to that weeks exercises will be online (below) and so we can't accept any more solutions from you.

Please be aware that these are just the preliminary contents, they might still changes!

Learning objectives

After this course you will be able to (1) classify and describe vulnerabilities and protection mechanisms of secure hardware (smartcards, crypto-coprocessors), operating systems and software systems (2) analyze / reason about basic protection mechanisms for modern OSs, software and hardware systems.

Content Description

The lecture covers the security of individual computer systems, including personal computers, smart cards and dedicated platforms. The course starts with considerations of cryptosystem implementations and side channel attacks, security of widely used computer platforms and tamper resistant hardware. The course continues with the examination of operating system and application related security mechanisms, from their security architectures to malware; this part also cover virtualization and sandboxing mechanism, and modern virtualization platforms. Finally, the course ends with a set of selected security topics like biometrics and computer forensics.

Lecture schedule and material

Lectures are accessible with your ETH id and password. Please use Mozilla/Firefox to download them!

Please be aware that these are just the preliminary contents, they might still changes!