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Tel Aviv University

Unlocking Information Security I: From Cryptography to Buffer Overflows

Tel Aviv University via edX

Overview

Information Security is everywhere: as the world becomes more and more digitized, so it becomes more and more hackable. Cyber attacks, data breaches, and even cyber warfare are all very real - so it is infinitely important to understand how hackers think and act, and how you can fight back.

In this course, which is the first part of the Unlocking Information Security program, you will learn the basic terminology and concepts in the field of information security. You will explore different types of vulnerabilities through famous examples of design flaws, implementation bugs and social engineering.

You will then move on to discover the art of cryptography, from ancient times to the modern era, and learn about famous ciphers, how they can be cracked, and what can be done to thwart such attacks. Next, you will learn about an important aspect of cryptography that involves no secrets at all: hash functions. You will understand what they are, how they can be used, and how they can be attacked.

You will then combine everything you've learned and take a critical view of different authentication schemes: passwords, challenge-response systems and biometrics. Finally, you will learn about the most critical vulnerability of all times - Buffer Overflow.

This course was produced at Tel Aviv University by TAU Online - learning innovation center.

Taught by

Avishai Wool and Dan Gittik

Reviews

4.7 rating, based on 319 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Unlocking Information Security I: From Cryptography to Buffer Overflows

  • Profile image for Raphael Freitas
    Raphael Freitas
    This couse changed my life. I took it and, with enormous difficult, I saw that I needed to learn programming. So I took a set of courses about programming and I came back to take the part two. The two professors, Avishai Wool and Dan Gittik, are incredible, fantastic, I have no words to describe them... but in Portuguese I have: Eles são excepcionais, extraordinariamente competentes! All the texts, the explanations, the images, animated gifs, the didatics, the manner of conducting our thoughts to understand the subjects! I just have to thank you for the opportunity to learn from this course. Course not, masterpiece!
  • Anonymous
    This course is amazing! First of all - the content is great, clear and profound, making complicated issues accessible and understandable. Furthermore, the lecturers are great, they are real experts and yet they seem approachable. The effort and thought that were put into this course really make it stand out, the explanations, the animations, I took many online courses before and none of them was as good as this one.
  • Anonymous
    This couse changed my life. I took it and, with enormous difficult, I saw that I needed to learn programming. So I took a set of courses about programming and I came back to take the part two. The two professors, Avishai Wool and Dan Gittik, are incredible, fantastic, I have no words to describe them... but in Portuguese I have: Eles são excepcionais, extraordinariamente competentes! All the texts, the explanations, the images, animated gifs, the didatics, the manner of conducting our thoughts to understand the subjects! I just have to thank you for the opportunity to learn from this course. Course not, masterpiece!
  • Anonymous
    חומר מעניין מועבר טוב
    מבין את הרצון לפנות לדוברי שפות זרות אבל כדובר עברית חבל שאין את החומר הכתוב והמבחנים גם בעברית.

    למרות שנהניתי לעשות את ההאקסרסייזים - וויתרתי עליהם לגמרי לאחר שיותר מדי פעמים נתקלתי בהוראות חסרות ומטעות שגרמו לתסכול ולחוסר יכולת להגיע להישגים או סתם לגרום לא לקבל אישור על התכנות (למרות שעובד לפי כל הבחינות) רק בגלל שמשהו בממשק בינו לבין התוכנה הבודקת לא שלם.
    כמו כן התשובה שקיבלתי מהתומך הטעני הייתה מתנשאת ומבאסת וגרמה לי לעזוב את ההקורס למשך שנה שלמה. אולי עכשיו, כשהחלטתי לא לעשות את התרגילים בתכנות בגלל הפגמים שלהם, אסיים את הקורס - שכמו שאמרתי בהתחלה - קורס מרתק.
  • Anonymous
    The moment the thought of cyber security came to my mind it was Israel that occupied my mind.Consequently I decided to take this course by TAU at EdX.The lucid explanation and effective teaching style of both the educators are worth mentioning.I was deeply impressed by the manner of teaching.Hope the journey continues.
  • Anonymous
    Can I buffer overflow this review? This is a nice course. First, there's no such a complete course of hacking and defending on the internet, all I saw was just "go to CTF!, Do more quiz!" But this one told us step by step, with small tests that were a little harder than the class, motivating us to think and understand it. Second, the presenter, no matter the "young" and "old" one's humorous speech telling skills (and also gifs) are wonderful! Last but not least, the "Hackxercise", all I can say is just go and experience in person.

    Thanks to all of the Staff, from the planner to those who made awesome animation.
  • Anonymous
    Very good so far. episode 4 is a bit lucking. I would like a Hackersice for it or some form of more in depth data
  • Profile image for Tomgi859
    Tomgi859
    One of the mose awesome, friendly, understandable, and definitely the one with the most efforts invested in I've even ran into in my life! Super-friendly course, which require familarity with Python, which I had not a all in the beginning, but with…
  • Anonymous
    A very good course. Who want to iniciate or understand what are already doing, it's so great!!

    The teachers are great, the subjects are presented with accuracy and transparency. I strongly recommend this wonderful course!
  • Anonymous
    Dears, students and docents .

    This course is more an introductory course than intermediate, if you have some prior undergraduate knowledge you might learn very few new things ...

    You can find almost all by searching on wikipedia, and trolling by your favorite space around the corner ...

    If you're a pentester or black hat, that tries to pwn things, this wont help ...

    Kind Regards,
    JP xor John Philippe
  • Great mix of concepts, illustrations, and practices, including relevant and useful quizzes and programming assignments! The informal and humorous approach makes the course very engaging and motivating! I highly recommend it!
  • Anonymous
    This is a great course. Especially those who know how to write code are going to enjoy it. The exercises helped me to have a deeper and better understanding of what really happens under the hood. Moreover, the course makes me realize how vulnerable our modern world is. Fortunately, this teaches me how to better protect my own thing!
  • Anonymous
    This course is very good, I recommend it to everyone who wants to know what Ciphers, Hash Functions, Buffer overflow and some famous examples of each one of them are. In addition to examples, there are excellent indications of complementary materials for those who wish to delve deeper into the subject.
  • Anonymous
    All the contents a well exposed and explained. Exercises are completely in the high level of this course. Only with the codeboard I had the bad experience that I'm only anonymous user.
  • Anonymous
    I'm really enjoying this course. It covers a nice range of topics related to security.
    This course also has a good balance of information and coding exercises.
  • Anonymous
    Very comperhansive, from ciphers to malwares. I would recommend anyone looking into making his\hers first steps in information security to take this course!
  • Anonymous
    it is a great course, very easy to understand with a lot of exercises to help you understand and implement the things you've learned
  • Anonymous
    Really nice course as a broad introduction to the world of information security. Really great that something of this quality is free.
  • Anonymous
    Very interesting, I learned a lot of things, and the course helped me to think outside the box but at the same time to be methodical.
  • Anonymous
    Very good course, the instructors make everything very clear with great examples and analogies, genuinely enjoyed this part of the course

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