Ethical Hacking (Spring 2025)

Abstract

This is an applied course on information security. The course focuses on in-depth penetration testing techniques, elements of cryptanalysis and digital forensics, ethical aspects of security and responsible disclosure.

Description

In this course you will gain the skills necessary to become a security analyst/penetration tester. You will have already taken an introductory course on information security, and this course will give you an opportunity to learn more advanced tools for software analysis and exploitation, learn about the ethics of hacking and the responsible disclosure process.

The course will cover the following topics:

1. Ethics of hacking and responsible disclosure
2. Advanced exploitation tools (reconnaissance and payload generation)
3. Elements of cryptanalysis
4. Digital forensics

Formal prerequisites

Before the course you must:

1. Be familiar with security principles and risk analysis,
2. Be familiar with network security, web and binary penetration testing
3. Know basics of security protocols and cryptography
4. Know basic algorithms and data structures
5. Be familiar with operating systems and architectures, databases and compilers
6. Have implemented at least two medium-size programming projects

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Apply the principle of responsible disclosure
• Discuss ethical issues in computer security
• Apply cryptanalysis to break vulnerable encryption schemes
• Apply semi-automated exploitation tools for web/database/binary vulnerabilities
• Conduct digital forensics analysis

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
D: Submission of written work with following oral, External (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
D1G: Submission for groups with following oral exam based on the submission. Shared responsibility for the report.