University of Minnesota
Introduction to Computer Security
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Course assignments

Exercise set 1

Covering risk assessment, low-level attacks and defenses. Questions here. Due on the course Moodle by Thursday, September 25th at 11:55pm.

Hands-on assignment 1: Exploiting BCLPR

In this assignment you'll learn about binary-level and OS-level vulnerabilities within a buggy Linux program, and exploit them for fun and profit academic credit within a virtual machine.

Available now: assignment instructions, updated (PDF), virtual machine instructions.

BCLPR source code:

VersionC source codeMakefile Patch from previous version Security advisory
1.4 bclpr.c Makefile bclpr-1.4.patch ...
1.3 bclpr.c Makefile bclpr-1.3.patch BCSA-004
1.2 bclpr.c Makefile bclpr-1.2.patch BCSA-003
1.1 bclpr.c Makefile bclpr-1.1.patch BCSA-002
1.0 bclpr.c Makefile N/A BCSA-001

Commands for downloading a new version of BCLPR into your VM and recompiling (shown with version 1.4):

% cd /src
% sudo rm Makefile bclpr.c
% sudo wget http://www-users.cselabs.umn.edu/classes/Fall-2014/csci5271/ha1/v1.4/{Makefile,bclpr.c}
% sudo make
% sudo make install
% bclpr -v

Exercise set 2

Covering defensive programming and OS security. Questions here, C code for question 1. Due on the course Moodle by Thursday, October 9th at 11:55pm.

Exercise set 3

Covering a bit of voting, network basics, and cryptography. Questions here. Due on the course Moodle by Thursday, November 6th at 11:55pm.

Hands-on Assignment 2: Network and web exploits

In this assignment you'll learn about network-level and web software vulnerabilities within a buggy web server, and exploit them within a virtual machine to steal "secret" information.

Available now: Questions handout (now complete) (PDF), virtual machine instructions.

Exercise set 4

Covering cryptography and middleboxes. Questions here. Due on the course Moodle by Thursday, November 20th at 11:55pm.

Exercise set 5

Covering XSS, malware, and DoS. Questions here. Due on the course Moodle by Thursday, December 4th at 11:55pm.