Software Security - 2025

Instructor:
Cătălin Bîrjoveanu (catalin.birjoveanu@uaic.ro)

---

Objectives:

• Understanding the role that software plays
  • in providing security
  • as source of insecurity
• Understanding typical threats and vulnerabilities that make software less secure
• Understanding what are the underlying causes of threats and vulnerabilities in software and how to avoid them
• Understanding techniques, guidelines, principles, and tools to make software more secure

---

Topics:

• Set-UID Privileged Programs and Attacks
• Environment Variables and Attacks
• Shellshock Attack
• Security in the Software Development Life Cycle
• Buffer Overflow Attacks
• Shellcode Injection Attacks
• Return-to-libc and ROP Attacks
• Format String Attacks
• Race Condition Attacks
• SQL Injection Attacks
• Cross-Site Scripting Attacks
• Software Security Principles

---

Attacks Lab:

Lab exercises that help to understand the software security principles discussed in course and apply those principles to solve real problems using Linux operating system. The focus of the exercises is to analyze software systems for finding the security vulnerabilities, to exploit the vulnerabilities, and apply the prevention techniques that can help defend against such attacks. The studied vulnerabilities are: Attack Vectors on Set-UID Programs, Attacks through Environment Variables, Shellshock, Shellcode Injections, Return-to-libc, Format Strings, Race Conditions, SQL Injections, Cross-Site Scripting.

---

Lecture Notes	References
Set-UID Privileged Programs and Attacks	Wenliang Du, Computer Security: A Hands-on Approach, 2022, Chapters 1, 2.
Environment Variables and Attacks	Wenliang Du, Computer Security: A Hands-on Approach, 2022, Chapter 3.
Shellshock Attack	Wenliang Du, Computer Security: A Hands-on Approach, 2022, Chapter 16.
Buffer Overflow Attacks	Michael Howard, David LeBlanc, John Viega, 24 Deadly Sins of Software Security, 2009. BlueBorne Attacks, 2017. Ticketbleed Attack, 2017.
Shellcode Injection Attacks	Wenliang Du, Computer Security: A Hands-on Approach, 2022, Chapter 4. Aleph One, Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit, 1996.
Return-to-libc and ROP Attacks	Wenliang Du, Computer Security: A Hands-on Approach, 2022, Chapter 5.
Protection Mechanisms Against Buffer Overflow Attacks	Ulfar Erlingsson, Yves Younan, Frank Piessens, Low-Level Software Security by Example, Springer, 2010.
Format String Attacks	Wenliang Du, Computer Security: A Hands-on Approach, 2022, Chapters 6.
Software Security Vulnerabilities
Race Condition Attacks	Wenliang Du, Computer Security: A Hands-on Approach, 2022, Chapters 7.
SQL Injection Attacks	Justin Clarke, SQL Injection Attacks and Defense, 2nd Edition, Elsevier, 2012.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks	Dafydd Stuttard, Marcus Pinto, The Web Application Hacker's Handbook - Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws, 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons, 2011, Chapter 12. Mike West, Joe Medley, Content Security Policy, 2020. W3C Web Application Security Working Group, Content Security Policy Level 3, 2025.

Attacks Lab	References
Set-UID Privileged Programs	Set-UID Privileged Programs and Attacks, Lecture Notes.
Attacks on Set-UID Privileged Programs
Attacks through Environment Variables	Environment Variables and Attacks, Lecture Notes.
Shellshock Attack	Shellshock Attack, Lecture Notes.
Exercises
Shellcode Injection Attacks	Shellcode Injection Attacks, Lecture Notes.
Protection Mechanisms Against Buffer Overflow Attacks	Protection Mechanisms Against Buffer Overflow Attacks, Lecture Notes.
Return-to-libc Attacks	Return-to-libc and ROP Attacks, Lecture Notes.
Race Condition Attacks	Race Condition Attacks, Lecture Notes.
Defeating dash Protection
SQL Injection Attacks	SQL Injection Attacks, Lecture Notes.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks	Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks, Lecture Notes.
Scores/Grades