Instructor:  Ryan Cunningham

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the technical aspects of cybersecurity. No background is assumed. If you want to learn how this stuff works, this course was made for you.

The course is intended for graduate students in law, public affairs, and other non-technical disciplines. We will explore topics like cryptography, authentication, malware, and social engineering. Note that this course does not address legal or policy questions, as those are the subject of the separate Cybersecurity Foundations course taught by Professor Chesney. Both courses are part of the larger Strauss Center program promoting cross-disciplinary training related to cybersecurity across the graduate school community at UT.

Further notes:

1. For LBJ students who intend to take part in Strauss’s “cybersecurity fellows” program (details here), they’ll need to take this one sooner or later, as the program requires at least one technical course to go with the law and policy courses.

2. Specific topics covered by this course:

09/09 - Fundamentals of Security & Computation

09/16 - Cryptographic Hashes

09/23 - Symmetric Cryptography

09/30 - Asymmetric Cryptography

10/07 - Cryptography in Practice

10/14 - Fundamentals of Web Apps & AppSec (Midterm)

10/21 - Server-side Web Attacks & Defense

10/28 - Client-side Web Attack & Defense

11/04 - Fundamentals of Systems

11/11 - Systems Security

11/18 - Software Vulnerabilities

11/25 - Software Security

12/02 - Network Security Overview

12/09 - The Human Factor

The Law School is the home department for this course.