Activity 1: Introduction to C

Abstract

This activity is expected to be the first in a sequence of activities that aim to teach undergraduate students about stack smashing or stack-based buffer overflow attacks. The activity aims to introduce students to selected concepts and constructs of the C language that are essential for students to know in order to later learn about stack smashing. At the end of this activity, students should be able to 1) Create simple C programs using variables, functions and arrays ; 2) Understand the structure of strings in C, their memory composition in bytes and the unsafe C function strcpy() and 3) Create and run a C program that uses command-line arguments. The activity is targeted towards junior and senior level undergraduate students in a Computer Science major. It is designed as a Learning Cycle activity that students will work on in small groups during class.

Level: Undergraduate

Setting: Classroom or Laboratory

Activity Type: Learning Cycle

Discipline: Computer Science

Course: Introduction to Security and Privacy

Keywords: C programming, Cybersecurity, Buffer overflow, Unsafe C functions