EE515/IS523: Security of Emerging Systems

Syllabus

Read this document very carefully, as it defines what is required to perform effectively in this class.

Instructor & Logistics

• Instructor: Yongdae Kim   yongdaek(at)kaist.ac.kr (please include [ee515] in the subject)
• Office: N26 201   Office hours: TBD (also by e-mail appointment)
• TA: Beomseok Oh, Sangmin Woo, Jiwoo Suh   syssec.ta(at)gmail.com (by appointment only)
• Lecture: MW 2:30PM - 3:45PM, N1 113
• Class homepage: http://security101.kr — read carefully and regularly.

Goals

• To discover new attacks in emerging systems.
• The main objective is to learn how to think like an adversary.
• Review various ingenious attacks and discuss why and how such attacks were possible.
• Students who take this course will be able to analyze the security of practical systems.

No Goals

• In-depth study of OS / Software / Network security and Cryptography.
• Hands-on hacking tutorials on Android, Windows, embedded systems, etc.

Textbook

• Required: Papers!
• Optional
  • Handbook of Applied Cryptography by Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. Van Oorschot, Scott A. Vanstone, CRC Press, 1996. Available on-line at http://www.cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/hac/
  • Security Engineering by Ross Anderson. Available on-line at https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html

Course Content

• Overview: Introduction; Attack Model, Security Economics, Legal Issues, Ethics; Cryptography and Key Management
• Frequent mistakes: User Interface and Psychological Failures; Software Engineering Failures and Malpractices; Cryptographic Failures
• Case Studies: Medical Device, Blockchain, Privacy, Machine Learning, Autonomous Driving, Drone, Cellular Network, Metaverse, LLM, Robot, Satellite, and anything else (up to you!)

Evaluation

Approximately:

See Reading Report and Project Information for details.

Grading

Absolute (i.e., not on a curve), but flexible ;-)

• 93.0% or above: A    90.0%: A-    (A+ will be curved)
• 85%: B+   80%: B   75%: B-
• 70%: C+   65%: C   60%: C-
• 55%: D+   50%: D   below 50%: F

LLM & Collaboration Policy

• LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.): You are strongly encouraged to use them actively as learning and research tools — to read faster, dig deeper, and sharpen your thinking. Just be aware they get things wrong, and you are responsible for everything you submit.
• Discussion with classmates: Encouraged — but write your own answer in your own words.

Policies

Incompletes will in general not be given. Exception: a provably serious family or personal emergency arises, with proof, and the student has already completed all but a small portion of the work.

Scholastic conduct must be acceptable. You must write your own reading reports, questions, and summaries in your own words.