Introduction to Information Security - Spring 2021

Course overview

Course overview
Lecturers Professor Avishai Wool and Sella Nevo
Teaching Assistants Barak Itkin and Eyal Itkin
Exercise Checker Shahar Peled
Lectures Sundays 13:00-16:00 (0368-3065-01)
Location TBD (probably from your favourite couch)
Recitations Sundays 16:00-17:00 (0368-3065-02)
Sundays 17:00-18:00 (0368-3065-03)
Location TBD (you can switch to a different couch if you are nostalgic to rushing between places after each class)
Reception Hours Sundays, right after the second recitation (~18:00) and till the last customer.
We don't have a room assigned - so we'll wait in class a few minutes after the recitation, and then we'll find a room together
Exam 08/07/21
15/08/21

Course material

The course material is available on this site, and we also have available video recordings of the lessons from 2017. Note that while most material will stay similar, we will update some of the material and the order of lessons is going to change.

The high-level list of topics that will be covered is:

  • Cryptography (symmetric and asymmetric, hashing, signatures, etc.)
  • Reverse engineering and binary patching
  • Low level vulnerabilities and their exploitations (BoF, ROP, Polymorphic shellcodes, etc.)
  • Networking vulnerabilities and defence mechanisms
  • Logical vulnerabilities and permission models
  • Secure web applications and authentication methods

Homework

There are weekly homework assignments, submitted individually; There will be 10-12 assignments, with the final grade made of 35% exercises and 65% exam. The homework assignments are "hands-on" and may require significant time and effort, based on the individual background of individual students.

Contacting Us

  • If this is a general question about the material, use the Facebook group whenever possible.
    • We want to avoid duplicate questions that happen with emails.
    • We have 100+ students. That's lots of emails :P
    • We use Facebook because that’s a platform most people actually visit frequently (unlike Moodle), and it proved to be more effective in previous years.
    • If for some reason you feel strongly against using Facebook, feel free to use the Moodle - we will also answer questions there, and important updates will be posted both on Facebook and Moodle.
  • If you still need to reach us directly for other issues - use our emails:
  • For special extension requests (for exercises) and appeals on exercise grading, contact the TA.
    • Do not contact the grader directly.

Thanks

Special thanks to Larisa Slepyan-Eshed, Ariel Cohen, and Sonia Sela for their help in making this course, its administration and its infrastructure possible!

Additional thanks to Dan Gittik, for his significant role in building the course site and composing major parts of the teaching material.

Accessibility

This course website was developed following the Israeli accessibility standards and based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. While our best efforts were made in ensuring the accessibility of this site, it's possible we may have missed something. If you encounter any part of the course website which is not adequately accessible, please reach out to Barak Itkin (barak.itkin@gmail.com).