This graduate-level course explores the security of modern computer systems from a micro-architectural perspective. Recent years have revealed critical hardware vulnerabilities, including cache side-channel attacks, transient-execution attacks (e.g., Spectre and Meltdown), and DRAM Rowhammer attacks, that undermine traditional software-based security guarantees. These vulnerabilities enable attackers to extract sensitive information, corrupt data, or escalate privileges, posing serious risks to cloud computing, confidential computing, and critical infrastructure.

The course examines both offensive and defensive aspects of micro-architectural security. Students will study the root causes of hardware vulnerabilities, analyze real-world attacks, and develop proof-of-concept exploits on contemporary systems. In parallel, the course covers architectural and system-level defenses, including cache isolation, secure speculation mitigations, and hardware-based trusted execution environments (TEEs).

The course is primarily lecture-driven, with lectures based on seminal and recent papers from top-tier computer security, and architecture conferences. Through programming assignments and a mini-research project, students gain hands-on experience in secure computer architecture and develop the skills needed to evaluate, design, and implement hardware-based security mechanisms.