Questions or comments regarding 6.566? Contact us on Piazza or send e-mail to the 6.566 staff at 6566-staff@lists.csail.mit.edu.
The lectures cover a broad overview of systems security together with a deeper focus on several topics: isolation techniques, privilege separation, dealing with buggy code, networked and distributed systems, and human-focused security and privacy.
Links to notes etc. on future days are copies of materials from last year, to give you an idea of what the future will bring. We will update the notes as the course progresses. The year of publication for class readings are shown in parentheses.
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| feb 5 First day of classes |
feb 6 LEC 1: Introduction, threat models (video) Preparation: Optionally read Modern Android exploit Assigned: Lab 1: Buffer overflows |
feb 7 | feb 8 LEC 2: OS and VM isolation (video) Preparation: Read about OS and VM isolation (Question) |
feb 9 |
| feb 12 | feb 13 LEC 3: Software fault isolation (video) Preparation: Read about WebAssembly (Question) |
feb 14 | feb 15 LEC 4: Trusted hardware (video) Preparation: Read BitLocker (2006), sections 1-2 (Question) |
feb 16 DUE: Lab 1 part 1 DUE: Lab 1 part 2 |
| feb 19 Presidents day |
feb 20 Monday schedule |
feb 21 | feb 22 LEC 5: CPU side-channels (video) Preparation: Read Transient Execution Attacks and Defenses (2019) (Question) Assigned: Lab 2: Privilege separation |
feb 23 DUE: Lab 1 all parts |
| feb 26 | feb 27 LEC 6: Privilege separation (video) Preparation: Read OpenSSH (2003) (Question) |
feb 28 | feb 29 LEC 7: Data center infrastructure (video) Preparation: Read Google Infrastructure Security (2023) and BeyondProd (2023) (Question) |
mar 1 DUE: Lab 2 part 1 |
| mar 4 | mar 5 LEC 8: Mobile phone security (video) Preparation: Read about iOS Security (Question) |
mar 6 | mar 7 LEC 9: Web security model (video) Preparation: Read about web security (2022) (Question) |
mar 8 DUE: Lab 2 parts 2+3 ADD DATE |
| mar 11 | mar 12 LEC 10: Buffer overflow defenses (video) Preparation: Read Baggy bounds checking (2009) + errata (Question) Assigned: Lab 3: Symbolic execution |
mar 13 | mar 14 LEC 11: Symbolic execution (video) Preparation: Read EXE: Automatically generating inputs of death (2006) (Question) |
mar 15 DUE: Lab 2 all parts |
| mar 18 | mar 19 LEC 12: Verification (video) Preparation: Read HACL* (2017) (Question) |
mar 20 | mar 21 Quiz 1: Covers lectures 1-12 and labs 1-2 Reference: Past quizzes, solutions Materials: Open laptop Time and Location: 2:30-4p in 45-230 |
mar 22 Assigned: Lab 4: Browser security |
| mar 25 Spring vacation |
mar 26 Spring vacation |
mar 27 Spring vacation |
mar 28 Spring vacation |
mar 29 Spring vacation |
| apr 1 REC 1 (anna): Getting started with lab 3 Time and Location: 4-5pm in 24-115 |
apr 2 LEC 13 (guest): Supply chain security (Russ Cox) (video) Preparation: Read Trusting Trust (1984) and Russ's blog post (2023), and optionally xz attack (2024) |
apr 3 | apr 4 LEC 14: Network security (video) Preparation: Read about network security (Question) |
apr 5 DUE: Lab 3 part 1 |
| apr 8 | apr 9 LEC 15: Secure channels (video) Preparation: Read TLS 1.3 blog post (2018) (Question) |
apr 10 | apr 11 LEC 16: Certificates (video) Preparation: Read Let's Encrypt (2019) (Question) |
apr 12 DUE: Lab 3 all parts Assigned: Lab 5: ACME + WebAuthn |
| apr 15 Patriots day |
apr 16 REC 2 (bill): Getting started with lab 4 (video) Time and Location: 2:30-4pm in 45-230 |
apr 17 | apr 18 LEC 17: User authentication (video) Preparation: Read U2F (2016) and optionally from U2F to passkeys (2023) (Question) |
apr 19 DUE: Lab 4 part 1 |
| apr 22 | apr 23 LEC 18: Messaging security (video) Preparation: Read Analysis of Signal (2019), sections 1-3 (Question) DROP DATE |
apr 24 | apr 25 LEC 19: Key transparency (video) Preparation: Read CONIKS (2015) (Question) |
apr 26 DUE: Lab 4 all parts |
| apr 29 REC 3 (sanjit): Getting started with lab 5, notes (video) Time and Location: 10-11am in 24-121 |
apr 30 LEC 20: Anonymous communication (video) Preparation: Read Tor (2004) and blog posts 1, 2, and 3 (2012) (Question) |
may 1 | may 2 LEC 21 (guest): Cybersecurity policy (Daniel Weitzner) (video) Preparation: Read Keys under doormats (2015) and Cyber risk (2024) |
may 3 DUE: Lab 5 part 1 |
| may 6 | may 7 LEC 22: Security economics (video) Preparation: Read Click trajectories (2011) (Question) |
may 8 | may 9 LEC 23: Differential privacy (video) Preparation: Read PINQ (2009) (Question) |
may 10 DUE: Lab 5 all parts |
| may 13 | may 14 LEC 24 (guest): Information security in real life (Max Burkhardt) (video) Last day of classes |
may 15 | may 16 REC 4: Final exam review Time and Location: 2:30-4pm in 32-123 |
may 17 |
| may 20 | may 21 | may 22 Final exam: Emphasis on lectures 13-24 and labs 3-5 Reference: Past quizzes, solutions Materials: Open laptop Time and Location: Johnson Ice Rink, 1:30-4:30pm |
may 23 | may 24 |
Questions or comments regarding 6.566? Contact us on Piazza or send e-mail to the 6.566 staff at 6566-staff@lists.csail.mit.edu.