CMSC 23200: Introduction to Computer Security: Schedule

Week	Date	Topics	Discussion Section	Due Dates	Readings
Week 1	Tues 3/25	Course Introduction, the Security Mindset, and Threat Modeling [slides]	None		Justin Ellingwood. SSH Essentials: Working with SSH Servers, Clients, and Keys. DigitalOcean, September 17, 2020. Textbook Chapter 1. Sean Gallagher. Securing Your Digital Life, Part One: The Basics. Ars Technica, October 25, 2021. Sean Gallagher. Securing Your Digital Life, Part Two: The Bigger Picture—and Special Circumstances. Ars Technica, October 27, 2021.
Week 1	Thurs 3/27	OS Security [slides]	None	HW 0 due Thurs 3/27 (SSH key upload and course policy acknowledgement)
Week 2	Tues 4/1	Memory Vulnerabilities, Memory Protection [slides]	1. Memory Safety		Textbook Sections 5.1-5.7. Textbook Chapter 6.
Week 2	Thurs 4/3	Memory Safety Wrap-up + Crypto Tools I [slides]	1. Memory Safety	Assignment 1 due Thurs 4/3	Textbook Sections 5.1-5.7. Textbook Chapter 6.
Week 3	Tues 4/8	Crypto Tools II [slides]	2. Crypto		Textbook Chapter 2. Textbook Sections 4.1 - 4.4. CVE-2020-11500. Dan Goodin. SSH Protects the World's Most Sensitive Networks. It Just Got a Lot Weaker. Ars Technica, December 19, 2023.
Week 3	Thurs 4/10	Crypto Tools III & How the Internet Works [slides]	2. Crypto	Assignment 2 due Thurs 4/10
Week 4	Tues 4/15	Network Attacks [slides]	None		Textbook Section 10.6. Textbook Sections 11.3-11.6. Textbook Sections 12.1-12.3. Celso Martinho and Tom Strickx. Understanding How Facebook Disappeared from the Internet. The Cloudflare Blog, October 4, 2021.
Week 4	Thurs 4/17	Network Attacks Part 2 [slides]	None	Assignment 3 due Thurs 4/17
Week 5	Tues 4/22	TLS and X.509 Certificates[slides]	3. Network Security 1		Textbook Chapter 8. Textbook Section 9.2. Textbook Sections 11.3-11.4. Josh Aas et al. Let's Encrypt: An Automated Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web. In Proc. CCS, 2019. Robert McMillan. How Heartbleed Broke the Internet — And Why It Can Happen Again. Wired, April 11, 2014.
Week 5	Thurs 4/24	DoS & Network Scanning [slides]	3. Network Security 1
Week 6	Tues 4/29	How the Web Works [slides]	4. TLS and Certificates		Textbook Section 9.1. Textbook Sections 9.3-9.7. James Mickens. To Wash It All Away. USENIX ;login:, March 2014.
Week 6	Thurs 5/1	Web Attacks & Defenses [slides]	4. TLS and Certificates	Assignment 4 due Fri 5/2
Week 7	Tues 5/6	Web Privacy & UI Attacks [slides]	5. Web Security		Textbook Section 9.8. Textbook Section 10.4. Farhad Manjoo and Nadieh Bremer. I Visited 47 Sites. Hundreds of Trackers Followed Me. New York Times, August 23, 2019. Kashmir Hill. Your Car Is Tracking You. Abusive Partners May Be, Too. New York Times, December 31, 2023.
Week 7	Thurs 5/8	Anonymity & Side Channels [slides]	5. Web Security
Week 8	Tues 5/13	Authentication I [slides] (Guest Lecture: David Cash)	6. Anonymity & Authentication		Textbook Chapter 3. Dan Goodin. Anatomy of a Hack: How Crackers Ransack Passwords Like "qeadzcwrsfxv1331". Ars Technica, May 27, 2013. Ashley Belanger. 23andMe Told Victims of Data Breach That Suing Is Futile, Letter Shows. Ars Technica, January 4, 2024. Matt Burgess. I Stopped Using Passwords. It's Great—and a Total Mess. Wired, February 8, 2024.
Week 8	Thurs 5/15	Authentication II [slides]	6. Anonymity & Authentication	Assignment 5 due Thurs 5/15
Week 9	Tues 5/20	Enterprise Security and Intrusion Detection [slides]	None		Textbook Section 10.1-10.2. Textbook Sections 11.1-11.3. James Mickens. This World of Ours. USENIX ;login:, January 2014.
Week 9	Thurs 5/22	AI/ML Security + Course Recap & Outlook [slides]	None	Assignment 6 due Thurs 5/22.
Week 10	Wed 5/28	Final Exam (10am-12pm) Room: KPTC 106		COMBINED Exam Time for BOTH SECTIONS	This is the final exam time for all students.

Schedule and Assignments (Spring 2025)