Teaching next-generation cybersecurity is NCSU professor’s goal

In recent years, computer hardware has faced an ever-evolving variety of cyberattacks that aim to access privileged information or take over a system’s operations. Unfortunately, academia has had trouble keeping pace, offering few – if any – courses that prepare students to make use of next-generation cybersecurity tools. One young researcher is trying to change that, and his course may be the blueprint for similar efforts elsewhere. “There are many kinds of attacks that take advantage of hardware vulnerabilities and that have garnered widespread attention – from side channel attacks that can steal encryption keys to micro-architectural attacks, such as Spectre and Meltdown,” says Aydin Aysu, creator of the novel cryptographic hardware design course and an assistant professor in NC State’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.