Computer Systems Security

6.858 Computer Systems Security is a graduate course from MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, taught by Nickolai Zeldovich in fall 2014 and published on OpenCourseWare with recorded lectures. It is about the design and implementation of secure computer systems; lectures cover threat models, attacks that compromise security, and techniques for achieving security, drawing on recent research papers. Topics include operating system security, capabilities, information flow control, language security, network protocols, hardware security and web application security. The lecture videos start with threat models, control hijacking and buffer overflow exploits and defences, then privilege separation, capabilities and sandboxing native code. A web block covers the web security model, securing web applications, symbolic execution and Ur/Web.

Network lectures deal with network security, protocols, and SSL and HTTPS, followed by medical software, side-channel attacks, user authentication, private browsing, anonymous communication, mobile phone security, data tracking and a guest lecture from MIT's IT department. The site provides lecture notes, readings, lab assignments, exams with solutions, a final project description and related resources. Everything is free under a Creative Commons licence, with no account and no certificate. The material assumes systems programming experience; it is a research-paper-driven graduate class, not a certification prep course.