Teaching
Courses, seminars, and student supervision in embedded systems security, firmware analysis, and hardware security at CISPA and partner institutions.
Current Courses
Foundations of Firmware Security
Advanced Lecture • Summer 2025
Saarland University
Firmware, the low-level software embedded in hardware devices, serves as the backbone of modern computing systems, from IoT gadgets and routers to critical infrastructure and satellites. Despite its crucial role, firmware often lacks proper security scrutiny, making it a prime target for persistent and stealthy attacks.
Topics Covered:
- Embedded systems architecture and hardware communication protocols (UART, SPI, JTAG)
- Firmware extraction and analysis
- Static and dynamic reverse engineering with tools like Ghidra and QEMU
- Re-hosting firmware for analysis
- + 4 more topics
Systems Security
Advanced Lecture • Winter 2025
Hamburg University
Important theoretical and practical aspects from the area of systems security are presented and discussed. The focus is on various aspects of software security and different attack and defense techniques.
Topics Covered:
- Buffer overflows, race conditions, use-after-free, heap overflows
- Defense strategies: non-executable memory, ASLR, memory tagging
- Fuzzing and symbolic execution
- Reverse engineering and obfuscation
- + 1 more topics
Past Courses
Reverse Engineering and Exploit Development For Embedded Systems
Advanced Lecture • Summer 2023
Saarland University
This course focuses on understanding the fundamentals of developing software/hardware exploits against embedded systems, covering firmware extraction, modification, and different hardware serial protocols.
Achievement: Around ten 0-days were identified by students in major Real-Time Operating Systems
Hardware Security Seminar
Seminar • Summer 2023
Saarland University
This seminar covers research papers addressing various topics in hardware security.
Systems Security
Advanced Lecture • Winter 2022 and 2023
Saarland University
Together with Thorsten Holz
Comprehensive course covering theoretical and practical aspects of systems security with focus on software security and attack/defense techniques.
Embedded Systems Security Seminar
Seminar • Winter 2022
Saarland University
Seminar covering research papers addressing various topics in embedded systems security.
Previous Teaching
Schwachstellenanalyse (Vulnerability Analysis)
Ruhr University Bochum
2019, 2018, 2017
Programmanalyse (Program Analysis)
Ruhr University Bochum
2019, 2018, 2017
Hacker's Hut
Eindhoven University of Technology
2018
Interested in Our Courses?
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