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Students Take a Walk on the Dark Side of Computing
This semester some CSCI students are delving into the darker side of technology in David Frazier’s Ethical Hacking class.
Ethical Hacking is defined as securing software and systems by trying to break into them. The ethical part means that you only attack systems that you have been given permission to test, and report all results to the proper authorities.
Topics covered this semester have included exploiting programs with memory buffer overflows, attacking and defacing Web sites, penetration testing and profiling, and reverse engineering suspicious code.
The emphasis in the class has been on using the knowledge gained in hacking activities to strengthen systems by enumerating security holes that can then be fixed. According to student Wes Bullington, “The things I learned in this class will help me to make my code and network more secure because I now have a basic understanding on how hackers may try to break in. This is also helpful in my current job by learning how to make the websites I build more secure.”
Many assignments in the class have been aided by the use of Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL), which is a distribution of Linux that includes vulnerable software and training exercises. Frazier states that, “DVL has saved me a great deal of time in the preparation of this class, and made things more exciting for the students.”
The class concluded with a competitive homework assignment on www.hackthissite.org. The Web site allows users to register for free, and then complete a series of ever more difficult hacking assignments. Points are given for correct answers. The students divided into teams of two or three and were given three days to accumulate as many points as possible. Grades were determined by how many points the winning team earned.
Students seemed to enjoy this unusual assignment. Student Sean Roden said, “The hackthissite.org competitive assignment was unique for this university. This was the first time that we truly had to rely on our analytical thinking skills and our ability to problem solve. I wish more classes had this type of assignment.”
The winners of this challenge were the team of Alex Suttmiller and David Rickels and the team of Jared Meredith, Ryan Gross and Corey Carico.
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