IERG 4851 | Cyber Security Laboratory

Course overview

A hands-on introduction to cyber security through authorized Capture The Flag challenges and laboratory exercises.

Observe the supplied artefact, form a hypothesis, test it in the authorized environment, and explain the result.

Short practical exercises build confidence with tools, program behaviour, and security reasoning.

Work only on files, binaries, and systems explicitly provided for this course or a CTF event.

Zhentao XIE

[email protected]

Office: SHB 725 & 726

Tentative. Topics and materials may be adjusted as the course progresses. New slides will appear in the lecture materials list.

Week	Date	Topic	Slides
1	Sep 11	Course Introduction & In-class Quiz; lab environment setup	00 · Course Overview 01 · Introduction to CTF 01-06 · Exercise Readmes Ungraded report: Blackboard, 17 Sep 23:59
2	Sep 18	Pwn 1 — Buffer Overflow & ret2libc	02-01 · Buffer Overflow & ret2libc (PDF) 02 Lab · In-Class Manual Ungraded practice record: Blackboard, Sep 24 23:59
3	Sep 25	Pwn 2 — ret2libc with ASLR & ret2libc 64bit	03-01 · ret2libc with ASLR, 32-bit (PDF) 03-02 · ret2libc 64-bit (PDF) 03 Lab · In-Class Manual 03 Demo/Lab · Classroom Code
4	Oct 2	No class — Academic leave	No lecture
5	Oct 9	Pwn 3 — Format String	To be posted
6	Oct 16	Pwn 4 — Heap (+ integer overflow)	To be posted
7	Oct 23	Pwn 5 — Kernel Exploitation (Linux kernel, Kernel ROP)	To be posted
8	Oct 30	Web 1 — Client-side Attacks (XSS, CSRF)	To be posted
9	Nov 6	Web 2 — Backend Vulnerabilities (SQLi, SSRF, upload, cmd injection)	To be posted
10	Nov 13	Reverse 1 — RE Basics (Ghidra, static/dynamic)	To be posted
11	Nov 20	Reverse 2 — Advanced RE (VM reversing, anti-debug, obfuscation)	To be posted
12	Nov 27	Crypto — Classical, Symmetric & RSA/Asymmetric	To be posted
13	Dec 4	Misc — Forensics + AI/Web3 taster	To be posted
Make-up	Dec 8 Tue, 1:30 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.	Make-up session for the academic leave week	Venue: SC 139 (Science Centre, Room 139)