COMP 435 (Fall 2026)

Monday / Wednesday / Friday 10:10-11:00am in Bingham 3014.

A working draft of the syllabus can be found here!

Office Hours

TA OH: in SN137

Wednesdays: 11-1pm, Thursdays: 3:30-4:30pm

Course Links

Assignments

Gradescope

In-Class Practice Solutions

Textbook #1: Computer Security and the Internet by Paul C. van Oorschot. PDF

Textbook #2: Introduction to Software Security by Barton Miller and Elisa Heymann. PDF

Course Schedule

Full-Semester Schedule Here. Subject to change!

Week 1

Monday 8/17:

• FDOC!! :)
• Lecture 0: Welcome! Introduction, Security Mindset + Security Policies
• Slides
• In-class Practice
• Reading: Section 1.1

Wednesday 8/19:

• Lecture 1: Basic Principles, Intro to Threat Modeling
• Slides
• In-class Practice
• Reading: Section 1.2

Friday 8/21:

• Lecture 2: Attack Trees, Case Study: 2020 Twitter Hack
• Slides
• In-class Practice
• Reading: Section 1.2

Week 2

Monday 8/24:

• Lecture 3: Finish Threat Modeling, Risk Analysis
• Slides
• In-class Practice
• Reading: Section 1.3-1.5

Wednesday 8/26:

• Lecture 4: Finish Risk Analysis, Secure Design Principles
• Slides
• In-class Practice
• Reading: Section 1.7

Friday 8/28:

• Lecture 5: Intro to Trust
• Quiz 1
• Slides
• In-class Practice

Week 3

Monday 8/31:

• Lecture 6: More Trust, Intro to HW Security
• Slides
• In-class Practice

Wednesday 9/2:

• Lecture 7: Hardware Security Properties
• Slides
• In-class Practice

Friday 9/3:

• In Class Activity Day
• Slides
• In-class WS. Turn in at end of class

Week 4

Wednesday 9/9:

• Lecture 9: Hardware Bugs, Errata, CWEs
• Slides

Friday 9/11:

• Lab 1 Released
• Lecture 10: Information Flow Security, Intro to Side-Channels
• Slides
• In-class practice

Week 5

Monday 9/14:

• Lecture 11: Spectre
• Slides
• Part 1 of WA2 Passed Out. Turn in before Friday’s class. 9/17 at 11:59

Wednesday 9/16:

• Lecture 12: Rowhammer
• Slides
• Slides Pt. 2

Friday 9/18:

• In Class Activity Day
• Slides

Week 6

Wednesday 9/23:

• Lecture 14: Operating Systems Security
• Slides
• In-class practice
• Reading: Section 1.7

Friday 9/25:

• Quiz 2

Week 7

Monday 9/28:

• Lecture 16: Race Conditions, Access Control
• Slides
• In-class practice
• Reading: Section 5.2-5.7

Wednesday 9/30:

• Lecture 17: Capabilities, Confused Deputy Attack
• Slides
• In-class practice
• Lab 2 Released

Friday 10/2:

• Lecture 18: Intro to Crypto
• Slides
• In-class practice