Cybersecurity
Undergraduate · CS / Programming
Syllabus focus
Topics typically covered
Standard syllabus
Security foundations
- CIA triad; threat modeling and attack surfaces
- Authentication, authorization, and access control
- Symmetric and public-key cryptography (intro)
- Hashes, MACs, and digital signatures (intro)
- TLS/SSL and secure channel establishment (survey)
Software and systems
- Common vulnerabilities: injection, XSS, CSRF
- Memory corruption: buffer overflows and mitigations (intro)
- Secure coding practices and input validation
- Password storage: salting and slow hashes
- Security policies, logging, and incident response (intro)
Threats and defenses
- CIA triad and attacker models
- Authentication, authorization, and session security
- Cryptography for practitioners: hashing, TLS, keys (intro)
- Web vulnerabilities: XSS, CSRF, injection (OWASP survey)
- Network security: firewalls, IDS/IPS overview
- Malware and social engineering awareness
STEM / applied
Hands-on security
- Penetration testing methodology and ethics
- Using scanners and fuzzers in controlled labs
- Web app security labs (OWASP Juice Shop-style)
- Network scanning and firewall rule design
- Digital forensics chain of custody (intro)
Applied domains
- Cloud security: IAM, KMS, and shared responsibility
- Mobile platform security models (intro)
- Malware analysis sandbox basics (intro)
- Compliance frameworks: HIPAA, PCI (survey)
- Red team vs blue team exercises (intro)
Secure engineering practice
- Threat modeling (STRIDE intro) for a small system
- Secure coding checklists and dependency scanning
- Log hygiene and incident response basics
- Cloud IAM misconfiguration case studies
- Privacy regulations awareness (GDPR/CCPA survey)
- Capstone: harden a demo app and document residual risk
Notes
Undergrad security courses range from theory-heavy crypto to lab-heavy ethical hacking.