Cybersecurity and Adversarial Thinking

Catalog description

Overview: Think like an (ethical) hacker and get into the habit of asking, “How would I break this?” Students will learn the principles of secure system design by viewing systems as attackers do—probing assumptions, spotting attack surfaces, and reasoning about incentives, capabilities, and vulnerabilities. They will gain an appreciation for why cybersecurity matters in business and everyday life. Topics include user authentication, cryptography, malware, game-theoretic modeling, and privacy-enhancing technologies, with examples ranging from ordinary web use to cryptocurrency and AI. Prerequisites: No programming experience required. You must have basic data literacy (e.g., use of spreadsheets) and a willingness to experiment with modern tools (e.g., LLMs).