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Karen Shay West: Tel: (508) 844-9776

KarenWest15@gmail.com


UNDER CONSTRUCTION WEB SITE

Topics and Projects Covered in Software Security

Link to Software Security class files
  1. Memory Security :
    • layout
    • memory-based attacks
    • stack smashing
    • buffer overflow
    • code injection
    • format string vulnerabilities and attacks
    • stale memory access attacks
  2. Memory and Type Safety Languages
    • immune from memory based attacks
    • Defenses :
      • stack canaries
      • data execution protection (DEP)
      • address space layout randomization (ASLR)
    • undertstand how attacks based on return-oriented-programming (ROP) work
    • understand the concept of control-flow Integrity (CFI) and how it can defeat ROP-based attacks.
  3. Web :
    • HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol)
    • HTML (hypertext markup language)
    • SQL (standard query language)
    • Javascript programming language
    • vulnerabilities, exploitation, defenses :
      • SQL injection attacks
      • web session state
      • using cookies and hidden form fields
      • Session hijacking
      • Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks
      • browser-executed Javascript programs exploits leading to Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities. Avoid flaws and bugs that introduce these vulnerabilities with input validation and sanitization
  4. Flaws and bugs
    • Secure design
    • threat modeling (Architectural risk analysis)
    • security requirements
    • avoiding flaws with principles :
      • like favor simplicity
      • trust with reluctance
      • defend in depth
      • monitoring/traceability
      • real-world examples of good and bad designs
  5. Testing and validation phases :
    • automated tools assist developers, testers in finding important security bugs--2 technologies--:
      • static analysis (SA) including flow analysis with and without adding sensitivity
      • and context sensitve analysis and symbolic execution (SE) as search
      • and the rise of solvers, the basics and their precision and scalabiltiy
      • SE is often used as the core of a penetration testing technology called white box fuzz testing.
  6. Penetration testing :
    • tools using these technologies and their techniques
    • Focus: whitebox fuzz testing, a technique that attempts to find potentially security-relevant software failures.

Topics Covered in Hardware Security:

Link to Hardware Security class files
  1. Digital System Design: Basics and Vulnerabilities:
    • understand how digital system is specified, implemented, and optimized
    • learn what are sequential systems and how they are designed
    • identify the don't care conditions introduced during the design process
    • know that there exist security and trust vulnerabilities in hardware
  2. Intellectual Property Protection: self-protection techniques for design IPs :
    • watermarking
    • fingerprinting
    • metering, assess the trade-off among security, cost and performance
  3. Physical Attacks and Modular Exponentiation :
    • understand the vulnerability to a system from hardware (physical attacks)
    • learn the available countermeasures to physical attacks
    • perform security evaluation for the hardware
    • implementation of security modules
    • modular exponentiation in cryptography, various ways to evaluate it and the security vulnerability
    • Montgomery Reduction
  4. Side Channel Attacks(SCA) vulnerabilities and information leaks :
    • study in-depth the following SCAs :
      • cache attacks
      • power analysis
      • timing attacks
      • scan chain attacks
    • Learn countermeasures from software, hardware, and algorithm design.
    • Implement security primitives such as RSA security, Modified Modular Exponentiation.
    • System engineering approach of building secure systems in all phases of the design.
  5. Hardware Trojan: (additions or modifications of the circuit with malicious purposes)
    • trusted integrated circuit (IC) design (does exactly what it is asked for, no less and no malicious more)
    • Hardware Trojan taxonomies based on different criteria
    • how hardware Trojans work
    • approaches to detect hardware trojans
    • Illustrate by design space analysis
    • hardware trojan prevention to build trust in ICs
  6. Emerging Hardware Security Topics :
    • trust platform module (TPM)
    • physical unclonable function (PUF) and a RO Reliability PUF
    • FPGA Implementation of Crypto
    • Vulnerabilities and Countermeasures
    • Role of Hardware in Security and Trust.