The System & Software Security Unit at Bristol is assessed either through exam XOR coursework. The exam option is worth 10 credits and the coursework option 15 credits. As per university guidelines “one credit point represents approximately 10 notional hours of student input”.
Will be coursework (and it may change up until its released so don’t go looking up what last years was under the expectation it won’t!) <!– The coursework is available on the unit Github page.
Revision session will be published in due time on Teams COMSM0049: Systems and Software Security (Teaching Unit) 2025-26 (TB-1, A) Teams channel Link
The relevant people for this unit are:
| Person | Role | Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Sana Belguith | Unit Director | sana.belguith@bristol.ac.uk |
| Jo Hallett | Lecturer | Jo.hallett@bristol.ac.uk |
| Andy Baldrian | TA | |
| Aagi Thomas | TA | |
| Zhiyuan Xu | TA |
You may need help at different stages of this unit. The most effective way to get the help you need is to:
Questions on the Teams channel should be your preferred course of action as every students on the unit can benefit from the answers (otherwise we end up saying the same thing repeatedly).
| Week | Lecture (Monday 11am-12pm QUEENS BLDG 1.68 ) | Lab (Tuesday 1-3pm MVB 1.15) | Homework | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (22/09) | Lecture 1: Interesting bugs and where to find them (Jo) | Lab 1: Assembly refresher | Homework | ||
| 2 (29/09) | Lecture 2: Heap overflows and the Malloc Maleficarum (Jo) | Lab 2: Format strings | Homework | ||
| 3 (06/10) | Lecture 3: Return oriented programming (Jo) | Lab 3: Stack smashing | Homework | ||
| 4 (13/10) | Lecture 4: Fuzzing (Sana) | Lab 4: ROP | Homework | ||
| 5 (20/10) | Lecture 5: Access Control (Sana) | Lab 5: Fuzzing | Homework | ||
| 5 (27/10) | ————–Reading Week———- | ———–Reading Week———- | ———————– | ||
| 7 (03/11) | Lecture 6: Rowhammer, Spectre and Meltdown (Jo) | [In-Class Test] | Homework | ||
| 8 (10/11) | Lecture 7: Hardware Security (Sana))) | Lab 7: Sandboxing | Homework | ||
| 9 (11/11) | Coursework | Coursework | |||
| 10 (18/11) | Coursework | Coursework | |||
| 11 (25/12) | Coursework | Coursework | |||
| 12 (02/12) | Revision | Revision |
As per appropriate for a master-level unit, students are expected to work independently outside of lectures and labs. Hence, reading materials and exercises are provided alongside labs and lectures. Students (especially those on the coursework option) are very strongly encouraged to do this work diligently during the first 7 weeks of the term. Students will struggle to complete their coursework on time if they haven’t engaged with the unit material beforehand.
You can find in this link lab notes that would help you complete the labs: Lab notes
This unit comes with reading material and homework (It is an Masters level unit, and one lecture a week is never going to be enough time to cover everything). Please make sure you go through it because it may crop up on any exam we set. We’ll try and keep it fairly light (read some papers, watch a video) and I’ll try and give you questions in the style of the exam in there. Ask in the labs if you want solutions, or try and mark them amongst yourselves (tip: if a question is worth 5 marks we generally are expecting 5 points to be made; if a question is worth 15 we’re expecting roughly three times the work, but are more interested in your reasoning and thinking: there may not be any definitively right answer!)
Have we mentioned it in class, the lab, in passing? Could be if so!
Nope, and we can’t do anything about it.
The markscheme (once released) is available to you for the coursework but the same principles apply to both. This stuff is hard and there often isn’t a definitively right answer; instead of focussing on whether something is the textbook answer explain your rationale as to why what you’ve said should get marks, and we’ll use our judgement. We want you to pass and value well reasoned, well thought out, delightfully subversive answers sometimes more than the correct ones. Show us you’ve engaged with the course and are aware of your answers limitations and strengths and you’ll score highly.