Computer Security Concepts

Course

COMP 435, Fall 2019
MW 3:35–4:50 P.M.
Genome Sciences G200
Syllabus

Instructor

Cynthia Sturton

TAs & LAs

Dylan Tastet
Saumya Ray
Perry Healy
Kimia Pourali
Bokai Li

Contact

435f19instructors@cs.unc.edu
Piazza site

Office Hours


Course Description

Building secure systems is the responsibility of all computer scientists, not just a few security specialists. To that end, this class will foster in students a security mindset—a way of examining any system to find vulnerabilities and assess their effect on security. Along the way, students will learn about the types of security policies one might care about, how attackers can and have thwarted security, sometimes in surprising ways, and what steps computer scientists and engineers can take to improve the security of their own systems. The course will cover aspects of security ethics and privacy and will incorporate discussion of related events in the news.

This class is meant for computer science students who wish to develop literacy in foundational computer security topics. The prerequisites are COMP410 and COMP 411. Students who have already taken Introduction to Computer Security (COMP535) should not enroll in this class.

Piazza

The class site on Piazza is the best place for you to ask a question. Here are some guidelines.
  • If you are wondering about something, ask a question!
  • Answer other students' questions and refine existing answers.
  • Be polite; be kind.
  • Do not post code or ask others to post code.
  • You may post privately to the instructors, but we reserve the right to make all or part of the post public if we feel the question is of general interest to the class. (If we do this, we won't reveal any personal information about the original poster.)
  • We may post questions on Piazza that get emailed to the instructors if we feel the question is of general interest to the class. (Same as above.)

Gradescope

We will be using Gradescope to submit homework and return grades.

Key Dates

Midterm exam: 10/09/2019 (tentative)
Final exam: 12/07/2019 4–7 P.M.

Grading

Assignments: 50%
Project: 15%
Midterm exam: 15%
Final exam: 20%