Real-world Vulnerability Discovery

Overview

SemesterWinter 2025
Course typePractical Course/ Lab
LecturerProf. Dr. Wressnegger, KITCTF
AudienceInformatik Master & Bachelor
Credits4 ECTS
Room149 and -120, Building 50.34
LanguageEnglish and/or German
LinkTBA
RegistrationTBA

Attention

Kick-off Meeting Canceled! I contrast to previous years we do not do a joint meeting to start the course due to an unfortunate clash of appointment. Please, contact us if you still want to participate. We are happy to give you an individual "intro" to the course.

Description

In this practical course, you work on finding 0-day vulnerabilities in real-world software. You practically learn about exploitation techniques, bug-bounty programs, and vulnerability disclosure. Students will engage in collaborative vulnerability research investigating the security of pre-defined software targets. However, instead of working in a controlled/staged setup with toy vulnerabilities, you will analyze real-world software found in production with an undefined number of vulnerabilities.

You will report your findings in the scope of the vendor's bug-bounty programs or similar disclosure procedures, striving to have a CVE number assigned to the found vulnerability.

Tentative Schedule

DateStep
Tue, 04. Nov, 14:00–15:30Kick-off Meeting (please contact us directly)
Thu, 13. Nov, 19:00What are CTFs? & Web Security
Thu, 20. Nov, 19:00Reverse Engineering
Thu, 27. Nov, 19:00Binary Exploitation
Thu, 04. Dec, 19:00Cryptography
...TBA
Thu, 12. FebHand-in Write-up and PoC
Fri, 20. Feb, 14:00–15:30Presentation at final colloquium

Prerequisites

You should have successfully passed the following courses:

  • Lecture "Informationssicherheit"
  • Practical course "Anwendungssicherheit"