CS253 Cyber Security

Autumn 2025 (Webpage under construction)


The course covers principles of information security. The focus is on how to build secure systems with a cutting-edge view. The range of topics is not limited to cyber security, but also includes system and architecture security. Many hands-on examples during the course will show how things go wrong when these principles are not followed. Note that this course is completely re-designed and newly renovated to cover the latest academic and industry breakthroughs, and the content is subject to change.


Administrative Information

Instructor Yuan Xiao (email: xiaoyuan@shanghaitech.edu.cn)
Teaching Assistant Yiting Chen (email: chenyt2024@shanghaitech.edu.cn)
Office Hours TBD
Lecture Time Mon & Wed 8:15–9:55 AM
Location SIST 1A108
Piazza https://piazza.com/shanghaitech.edu.cn/fall2025/cs253
Gradescope https://www.gradescope.com/courses/1127321

Syllabus

The intended syllabus of the whole semester can be downloaded here. The contents may be subject to change during the semester.

Week Topic Slides (Monday) Slides (Wednesday)
1 Introduction Download
2 Control Hijacking Attacks and Defenses Download Download
3 Security Principles and OS Security Download
4 Isolation and Sandboxing Download
5 To appear

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Academic Integrity Statement


This course deploys a special experimental learning method by encouraging students to research and study with AI and online resources. However, basic academic integrity rules still hold when the students complete their assignments. NO copy-paste is allowed, including but not limited to work of peer students, work of past students, AI-generated code or open-source code. Building your own work on top of online resources is permitted (as partial of your work), with modifications into your own version. Please keep a record of the reference materials you use, including AI chat history, open-source repository link and so on in case you need a rebuttal to justify your work. This course checks code repeating rate to detect copying behaviors. If your work is found greatly similar to that of your peer students, the course instructor will perform an investigation with you. If academic dishonesty is confirmed, you will receive 0 points to your cheating assignment plus a grade down in your total score as a penalty. If you receive three accumulative penalties, it will lead to a direct fail and be reported to the academic integrity committee of the school.