COMP6447 Notices

Notices

  • Online Help Session and Midterm walkthrough

    Posted by Adam Tanana Friday 17 October 2025, 11:02:52 AM.

    Hi Folks, hope the term is going well.

    Next week on Monday at 6pm, I will be walking through the solutions to the midterm.

    After that I will be running a generic help sessions to help with any course content we have covered so far.

    I'll stay as late as students have questions. Note : I won't be preparing content , this is purely going to be an open-air question/answer forum . Come with questions please :) Apologies if the time doesn't work for you. This session won't be recorded or live-streamed!


    Zoom: https://unsw.zoom.us/j/84563135287?pwd=6axj9SLTVjp5yDWRezbcUqZbbP8x3Q.1

    checked Passcode: 512301

  • Major Fuzzer Assignment

    Posted by Adam Tanana Monday 13 October 2025, 10:52:03 PM.

    Hi All,

    Like I announced in the Lecture today, the spec for the Major Fuzzer Assignment is available at https://fuzzer.6447.lol/ .

    The detailed spec is available on https://fuzzer.6447.lol/spec


    Please read this carefully. There are several due dates for different sections of the assignment.

    You must register your group by the end of Week 6, or you risk getting zero for the midpoint submission.

  • Midterm Wargame Details

    Posted by Adam Tanana Wednesday 08 October 2025, 09:09:43 PM.

    Hey all, some details about the upcoming midterm wargame.

    Details:

    • There will be 3 exploitation questions (involving topics from buffer overflows, format string and/or shellcode only) to solve, and fetch flags from the server (similar to wargames)
    • All instructions are available on the exam website https://midterm.6447.lol/ . Make sure you have access to this site, and understand the instructions BEFORE beginning the exam.
    • Between Monday, 13 Oct 12:00:00 AEDT to Fri, 18 Oct 18:00:00 AEDT you must attempt and submit this exam. It is worth 10% of the final mark. All submissions must be made within 2 hours of beginning the exam . No late submissions are allowed.
    • Once you begin the exam (By pressing "Start"), the website will show you the password to decrypt the challenges, as well as the server Domain and Port for the challenges.You must submit within 2 hours of starting the exam
    • The challenge files will be made available soon.
    • Submission will be done using Give ( Details will appear on the exam website ). The format for submission is available on the exam website

    Practice Exam

    We have made a practice exam (That will look exactly like the midterm wargame next week) available at https://2024.midterm.6447.lol/ .

  • Fmt string Lecture recording

    Posted by Adam Tanana Tuesday 07 October 2025, 12:37:55 PM.

    Hey all lecture recording details for last nights lecture are


    https://unsw.zoom.us/rec/share/XSNIqAabdObxuLF9ivQXXbQOyMWbB97_43NZoFxCl53K19d3uD_YIYU-2byI3cLu.G_Vy5QiQgTYw5Zuy

    Passcode: r==7nq6i

  • Week 4 lecture

    Posted by Adam Tanana Monday 06 October 2025, 09:56:28 AM, last modified Monday 06 October 2025, 06:07:52 PM.

    Hey all,

    The lecture in week 4 falls on a public holiday. I will still give a lecture (via zoom and recorded), but it is not compulsory to watch live. However, please make sure to watch the lecture before attending tutorials/wargames/midterm.


    Updated zoom details - The call is https://unsw.zoom.us/j/83151418637?pwd=adeJr0OOUKXc16UaC8guYxuSH98Yp0.1

    The details for lecture today at 6pm are https://unsw.zoom.us/j/89112023273?pwd=PtS70S8nB7uBMGoaCwxD2Zg8N2NG55.1

    Password: 123456


  • Mac Setup Tutorial

    Posted by Adam Tanana Monday 22 September 2025, 04:01:44 PM.

    Hey all, hope your week is going well and the first set of wargames went smoothly.

    Some students have reached out regarding difficulty setting up the environment on an ARM Mac. We have put together a tutorial at https://guides.6447.lol/mac that you can follow to hopefully setup a local environment on one of these devices, or a guide on how to setup a DigitalOcean droplet.

  • Welcome to COMP6447

    Posted by Adam Tanana Saturday 13 September 2025, 03:52:40 PM.

    Hey everyone.

    Hope you are all super excited to take COMP6447 this term. Before we start the First Lecture, some quick admin to sort out

    Course Forum

    This year we will be using Discourse as the course forum. Please sign up and login using https://discourse02.cse.unsw.edu.au/25T3/COMP6447/ . This will be the best place to get help from either your peers, tutors or me throughout the course. The best way to reach course staff will be either through Discourse or via Email.

    Course Outline

    The course outline is available on WebCMS. Please review it, it has important information about the course content and examinations.

    Classes In Person

    The lectures for this term are on Mondays, and will be covering content that is critical to both the weekly tutorials, and weekly wargames. It is super important that you are able to attend lectures and tutorials where possible. There are no online classes this term (Please reach out if this is a problem ASAP). We will try to record all lectures and release them (But make no promises to release them before your tutorials)

    Some resources to look at before we begin

    To help you prepare for this course, we've come up with a list of helpful prerequisite knowledge that you should revise (or skim over for the first time) before starting the course. These include:

    • How process memory is laid out
      • pointers
      • endianness
    • Difference between regions of memory (stack, heap, text, data)
    • Virtual memory/page table
    • Difference between kernel vs user space
    • Familiarity with using Linux, and Linux general knowledge
      • Linux file system
      • system calls
      • etc.
    • Familiarity with using GDB and python

    If you aren't familiar with some of these topics, that's fine. I recommend reviewing them before starting the course to make your experience smoother.

    I also recommend you have access to a Linux machine, A Linux Virtual Machine (or docker contains), with PwnTools , PwnDBG and BinaryNinja installed. These will be required to do many of the challenges in this Course. If you have issues installing anything, that's fine (Lab 1 is about helping you get ready, so no need to panic if you are unsure about anything).

    Also, I've setup 4 polls under Activities to better guage everyone's understanding of different topcis. Please take a look when you get a chance.

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