CMSC 23200: Introduction to Computer Security: Schedule

Week	Date	Topics	Discussion Section	Due Dates	Readings
Week 1	Tues 3/24	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 3/26	OS Security [slides]	None	HW 0 due Thurs 3/26 (SSH key upload and course policy acknowledgement)
Week 2	Tues 3/31	Memory Vulnerabilities [slides]	None		Textbook Sections 5.1-5.7. Textbook Chapter 6.
Week 2	Thurs 4/2	Memory Protection[slides]	None	Assignment 1 Due (4/2)	Textbook Sections 5.1-5.7. Textbook Chapter 6.
Week 3	Tues 4/7	Crypto Tools I [slides]	1. Memory Safety		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 4/9	Crypto Tools II [slides]	1. Memory Safety	Assignment 2 Due (4/9)
Week 4	Tues 4/14	TLS and X.509 Certificates [slides]	2. Crypto		Textbook Chapter 8. Textbook Section 9.2. Josh Aas et al. Let's Encrypt: An Automated Certificate Authority to Encrypt the Entire Web. In Proc. CCS, 2019. Textbook Section 10.6.
Week 4	Thurs 4/16	Network Background and Attacks [slides]	2. Crypto	Assignment 3 Due
Week 5	Tues 4/21	Networking Security II [slides]	3. TLS and Certificates		Textbook Section 9.1. 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. Robert McMillan. How Heartbleed Broke the Internet — And Why It Can Happen Again. Wired, April 11, 2014.
Week 5	Thurs 4/23	Networking Security III [slides]	3. TLS and Certificates	Assignment 4 Due
Week 6	Tues 4/28	DOS Attacks; How the Web Works [slides1, slides2]	4. Networking Security		Textbook Sections 9.3-9.8. James Mickens. To Wash It All Away. USENIX ;login:, March 2014.
Week 6	Thurs 4/30	Web Attacks & Defenses [slides]	4. Networking Security
Week 7	Tues 5/5	Midterm (In-Class)	None		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 5/7	Anonymity & Side Channels [slides]	None
Week 8	Tues 5/12	Authentication I [slides]	5. Web Security		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 5/14	Authentication II [slides]	5. Web Security	Assignment 5 Due
Week 9	Tues 5/19	Enterprise Security and Intrusion Detection [slides]	6. Anonymity and Authentication		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 5/21	AI/ML Security + Course Recap & Outlook [slides]	6. Anonymity and Authentication	Assignment 6 Due
Week 10	Wed, 5/27	Final Exam: Wed, May 27 from 6-8pm		COMBINED Exam Time for BOTH SECTIONS	This is the final exam time for all students.

Schedule and Assignments (Spring 2026)