CS253 Cyber Security
Autumn 2026 (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 | Jiaqi Chen (email: chenjq2025@shanghaitech.edu.cn) |
| Office Hours | By appointment |
| Lecture Time | Tue & Thur 10:15–11:55 AM |
| Location | SIST 1A104 |
| Piazza | https://piazza.com/shanghaitech.edu.cn/fall2026/cs253 |
| Gradescope | https://www.gradescope.com/courses/1392965 |
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 (Tuesday) | Slides (Thursday) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | Download | |
| 2 | Control Hijacking Attacks and Defenses | ||
| 3 | Security Principles and OS Security | Holiday | |
| 4 | Security Principles and OS Security (Cont.) | Holiday | |
| 5 | Isolation and Sandboxing | ||
| 6 | Microarchitecture I - TEE and Side-Channel Attacks | ||
| 7 | Microarchitecture II - More Side-Channel Attacks and Transient Execution Attacks | ||
| 8 | Special Topics - Automobile Security and AI Safety&Security | ||
| 9 | Web Security I - Model and Attacks | ||
| 11 | Cryptography and Invited Honorable Speaker | ||
| 12 | Web Security II - Building Secure Web Apps | ||
| 13 | Network/Internet Security |
Assignments
- Homework 1: Register for the course at both Gradescope and Piazza, sign up for the presentation topic, create your King of Security character (opening to be announced), and complete a quick HW1 posted on Gradescope. DDL 9/27 (Sunday) 23:59.
Grading
- Homework (25%): 3 written HWs
- Projects (45%): 3 single-person coding/experiment projects and the King of Security tournament!
- Presentation (20%): Pick one topic, prepare a demo, and present
- Participation (5%): Asking questions in Q&A of presentations
- Attendance (5%): Grading the presentation of your peer students
King of Security (KOS)
Character Forge — opening to be announced · Presentation topic sign-up
Learn security. Create your hero. Compete for the trophy.
King of Security is an experimental, fun tournament inspired by King of Fighters. All presentations and projects are tied to it. There is no additional tournament assignment: focus on your course work, and AI handles character images, equipment generation, combat simulation and videos.
- Create your hero: customize your character and let AI generate its image.
- Equip through your presentation: AI grades your presentation and generates equipment and abilities, including their types and stats.
- Combat for the trophy: AI simulates the matches and produces battle videos. Strength matters, but luck can also bring victory!
Tournament Rewards and Grading
6 percentage points of your final course score come directly from the tournament. The other 59 percentage points in the combined presentation-and-project component are awarded for your presentation and projects. Tournament points are part of that component, not an extra 6% on top of the course total.
| Tournament result | Reward |
|---|---|
| Gold | Direct A course grade and a gift; A+ if you already have an A. |
| Silver | Direct A course grade; A+ if you already have an A. |
| Round of 4 | 6 percentage points toward the final course score. |
| Round of 8 | 5 percentage points toward the final course score. |
| Round of 16 | 3 percentage points toward the final course score. |
| Round of 32 | 1 percentage point toward the final course score. |
Rewards follow your final tournament placement; round-based points are not cumulative.
KOS Timeline
| Phase | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| I. Sign-up & Character Creation | Weeks 1–2 | Sign up for a presentation topic. Use a crypto-based token to access Character Forge as a simple Project 1. Customize your hero and choose from up to 4 batches of 5 images (20 candidates in total). |
| II. Presentation | Weeks 3–9 and 11–13 | Give your presentation and receive AI grading. AI equips your character according to the presentation, determining equipment and ability types and stats. |
| III. Regular Combat | Weeks 3–9 and 11–13 | AI simulates battles and creates videos, with luck influencing the outcome. Battle videos are played in class and posted online. |
| IV. Final Combat | Week 14 | The final battles are live-streamed. Compete for the King of Security trophy! |
Presentation Rules
1. Presentation Sign-ups
Open presentation topic sign-up
Use your assigned QR ticket to sign up and manage your choices. Connect to the university VPN if the live board is unavailable. Each topic has three seats; you may also join one different topic's waitlist.
- Each student need to present ONLY ONE topic throughout the semester.
- Candidate topics are already provided on course website (syllabus.pdf).
- Sign up for your interested topic before the end of the Sunday of Week 2 (9/27), first come first serve.
- If you don’t sign up, we will do a random assignment.
2. How to Do a Presentation
- Presenter should do a 10-minute presentation + a 3-minute Q&A on the Thursday class of the week she/he signed up for. Exception is week 2, which could be delayed to week 3 or 4.
- Presenter MUST prepare a demo and a slide deck.
- Usage of Internet materials (including open source code or slides) is NOT restricted.
- Using AI to understand your topic or to prepare your demo/slides is allowed, and RECEOMMENDED.
3. How Presentations are Graded
- In total 20 points for your presentation, considering both presentation and Q&A performance. 10 points are graded by your audience and the other 10 points by AI.
- Each student must ask either (1) in total 2 questions throughout the semester, or (2) 1 relevant question that the presenter fails to answer, to get your 5 points of participation.
- You must show up in the class to grade the presentation of your peer students for 10 times to get all 5 points of attendance. Each missing attendance will cost you 0.5 points to be deducted.
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.