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A 24-hour seminar on Software Security and Protection will be held in July. The seminar will be held by Dr. Leonardo Regano and Dr. Alessandro Sanna, and is open to students enrolled in the MSc in Computer Engineering, Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence (2 credits) or the PhD Program in Electronic and Computer Engineering (3 credits). The seminar will encompass multiple aspects of the broad field of software security. 

Indeed, the importance of software security cannot be underestimated in the Digital Age when software underpins all aspects of our daily lives. The urgent need for strong security measures has been highlighted recently in the context of real-world examples such as ransomware attacks leveraging software vulnerabilities. Indeed, risk should be managed in all the phases of the software lifecycle, from application design to continuous monitoring after deployment to manage newly discovered vulnerabilities and threats.

This course encompasses multiple aspects in the broad field of software security, covering threat modeling techniques to ensure sound choices during application design, secure software development techniques, software testing techniques to ease vulnerability discovery, and software protection techniques to safeguard the application’s assets against reverse engineering attacks. Practical classes will be included to present real-world examples of common software vulnerabilities and valuable hands-on experience with automated software testing and protection tools.

Requirements

The student must have appropriate knowledge of the C programming language. A basic knowledge of the x86 Assembly language is optional but recommended.

Calendar

7 July - 14:30-18:30 - Room BA Building I - Secure programming: principle and guidelines

8 July - 14:30-18:30 - Room BA Building I - Security evaluation of software

10 July - 14:30-18:30 - Room BA Building I - Lab: software vulnerabilities and automatic software testing

13 July - 14:30-18:30 - Room BA Building I - Techniques for protection of software and Intellectual Property

15 July - 14:30-18:30 - Room BA Building I - Lab: static analysis of software

17 July - 14:30-18:30 - Room BA Building I - Lab: software obfuscation

Exam

The exam will take place as a group (3/4 students) project. To take the exam, each student must attend in person at least 4 of the 6 scheduled classes. Each group will analyze an application to find vulnerabilities and secure it against possible attacks using the automatic tools presented in the course. More information on the examination modalities will be given during the seminar.

Registration and further information

The registration form can be found at this link. For further information, feel free to contact Dr. Leonardo Regano via e-mail.