Fall 2026 Schedule
Friday lecture-and-lab meetings from 1:30–3:20 PM in the MIP Policy Studio, beginning September 25, 2026.
Class meets Fridays from 1:30–3:20 PM in the MIP Policy Studio (Encina Hall basement). All times are Pacific Time. Lab instructions and assigned systems will be available in the course console. Students will receive individual console invitations before the first lecture-and-lab meeting.
Networking Foundations
TCP/IP, routing, ports, services, command-line investigation, and the boundaries of an authorized security lab.
Network and Wi-Fi Security
DNS, ARP, BGP, packet flow, wireless protocols, authentication, and authorized traffic analysis.
Web Applications, Part 1
HTTP, requests and responses, application state, trust boundaries, and common web failure modes.
Web Applications, Part 2
Sessions, authorization, server-side trust, injection, and layered defenses in Cardinal Hack Store.
Attacking AI Systems
Prompt injection, data exposure, unsafe tool use, and attacks against AI-enabled application features.
Buffer Overflows and Exploits
Process memory, stack corruption, control-flow hijacking, debugging, and exploit construction.
Attacking with AI
AI-assisted reverse engineering and exploit development with Ghidra and a course-provided GLM harness.
Cryptography
Ciphers, symmetric and public-key systems, hashing, and the implementation mistakes that undermine them.
Guest Speaker
A practitioner perspective on contemporary cybersecurity work; speaker and topic to be announced.
Thanksgiving Recess
No class meeting.
Review and Career Advice
Course synthesis, continued learning, cybersecurity careers, and professional responsibility.