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Building secure software is an intricate task that involves careful design of both preemptive and corrective measures. This course will cover the secure development lifecycle where students will learn about techniques to model security threats, follow secure coding standards and perform security-focused testing to prevent software to expose vulnerabilities. Students will learn how to combine tools of various natures to identify threats as part of a continuous integration pipeline. The course also addresses data privacy and governance issues, including (indigenous) data sovereignty principles.
Covid-19 Update: Please refer to the course page on AKO | Learn for all information about your course, including lectures, labs, tutorials and assessments.
1. Evaluate data privacy practices, e.g., policies, regulations (e.g., NZ Information Security Manual) and data sovereignty (e.g., Te Mana Raraunga Principles of Māori Data Sovereignty) [WA2, WA6, WA8]2. Critically evaluate different malicious strategies and their taxonomies, e.g., OWASP Top 10, MITRE ATT and CK(tm) [WA1, WA2, WA10]3. Systematically evaluate and apply software resilience engineering principles, e.g., cryptography, security risk management and reinstatement methods in order to design resilience, strategies built from the literature and the current state of the practice [WA1, WA2, WA3]4. Explain, apply and evaluate secure coding principles when creating software, e.g., defensive and offensive programming, canonisation, sanitisation and least privilege execution [WA2, WA4, WA10]5. Apply, evaluate and develop software verification and validation strategies to discover security vulnerabilities, e.g., penetration, fuzzy and formal testing, as well as the usage of analysis tools [WA4, WA5]
This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attributes specified below:
Critically competent in a core academic discipline of their award
Students know and can critically evaluate and, where applicable, apply this knowledge to topics/issues within their majoring subject.
Employable, innovative and enterprising
Students will develop key skills and attributes sought by employers that can be used in a range of applications.
SENG201 and ENCE260, orapproval by the Head of Department
COSC424
Students must attend one activity from each section.
Please note that the course activity times advertised here are currently in draft form, to be finalised at the end of January for S1 and whole year courses, and at the end of June for S2 courses.Please hold off enquiries about these times until those finalisation dates.
Fabian Gilson
James Ransome and Anmol Misra; Core Software Security: Security at the source ; Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2014 (Available at the library (e-book)).
Paul C. van Oorschot; Computer Security and the Internet ; Springer, 2021 (Author’s copy: https://people.scs.carleton.ca/~paulv/toolsjewels.html).
Ross Anderson; Security Engineering ; 1st Edition; Wiley John + Sons, 2020 (First edition available at the EPS library).
The Computer Science department's grading policy states that in order to pass a course you must meet two requirements:1. You must achieve an average grade of at least 50% over all assessment items.2. You must achieve an average mark of at least 45% on invigilated assessment items.If you satisfy both these criteria, your grade will be determined by the following University-wide scale for converting marks to grades: an average mark of 50% is sufficient for a C- grade, an average mark of 55% earns a C grade, 60% earns a C+ grade and so forth. However if you do not satisfy both the passing criteria you will be given either a D or E grade depending on marks. Marks are sometimes scaled to achieve consistency between courses from year to year.Students may apply for special consideration if their performance in an assessment is affected by extenuating circumstances beyond their control.Applications for special consideration should be submitted via the Examinations Office website within five days of the assessment. Where an extension may be granted for an assessment, this will be decided by direct application to the Department and an application to the Examinations Office may not be required. Special consideration is not available for items worth less than 10% of the course.Students prevented by extenuating circumstances from completing the course after the final date for withdrawing, may apply for special consideration for late discontinuation of the course. Applications must be submitted to the Examinations Office within five days of the end of the main examination period for the semester.
Please click HERE for the CSSE Department's policy for the academic remedy of applications for a special consideration for final exams.
Domestic fee $1,176.00
International fee $5,475.00
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
For further information see Computer Science and Software Engineering .