CS 153: Security at Scale

Course Syllabus and Readings

Course Objectives

  1. Understand the challenges and strategies for securing large-scale systems and services.
  2. Gain insights from industry practitioners on real-world security challenges and solutions.
  3. Learn about the differences between centralized and decentralized computing systems and their associated security challenges.
  4. Explore the security aspects of elections, nations, enterprises, developers, consumers, and AI at scale.

Course Structure

1. Basics (Week 1)
  • Introduction to security at scale
  • Centralized vs. decentralized computing systems
  • Real-world security challenges in building and operating large-scale services
2. Elections & Nations (Weeks 2-3)
  • Cybersecurity in the context of elections and national security
  • Case studies and experiences from industry practitioners (DNC, DoD, FireEye, Mandiant)
  • Strategies for securing critical infrastructure and ensuring electoral integrity
3. Enterprises & Developers (Weeks 4-6)
  • Security challenges and best practices for large enterprises and developer ecosystems
  • Insights from security leaders at companies like Google and Cloudflare
  • Securing development processes, supply chains, and enterprise infrastructure
4. Securing Consumers at Scale (Weeks 7-8)
  • Protecting consumer data and privacy in large-scale consumer-facing applications
  • Experiences and lessons learned from security teams at Roblox, Facebook, and Discord
  • Balancing user experience, privacy, and security in consumer-oriented platforms
5. Securing Frontier AI at Scale (Weeks 9-10)
  • Emerging security challenges in the field of artificial intelligence
  • Insights from security experts at leading AI labs like DeepMind and OpenAI
  • Securing AI models, data pipelines, and deployment environments

Spring 2024 Speakers

Week 1:
4/3/2024
Bob Lord (Yahoo, Twitter, CISA).
Week 2:
4/10/2024
Dan Woods (FBI, CIA, F5) and Nicholas Shenkin (FBI)
Week 3:
4/17/2024
Dave DeWalt (FireEye, McAfee) and Royal Hansen (Google)
Week 4:
4/24/2024
Joe Sullivan (Facebook, Uber, Cloudflare) and Derek Smith (F5, Ballistic Ventures)
Week 5:
5/1/2024
Dave Baszucki (Roblox) and Neil Daswani (QuantumScape)
Week 6:
5/8/2024
Allen Leinwand (Webflow/Shopify/Slack) and Justin Smith (Goldman Sachs)
Week 7:
5/15/2024
Steve Huffman (Reddit) and Matthew Prince (Cloudflare)
Week 8:
5/22/2024
Anna Stepanov (Facebook) and TBD
Week 9:
5/27/2024
TBD
Week 10:
6/5/2024
Vijay Bolina (DeepMind) and Stanislav Vishnevskiy (Discord)