Teaching Security in Introductory C-Programming Courses

Abstract

[ES] The challenges in the age of digitalization demand that universities qualify their computer science and engineering graduates well with respect to IT Security (information technology security). In engineering education such lectures are often offered as an elective subject, only. We propose to teach security aspects with respect to robustness and correctness already in the introductory programming course and therefore to cover at least parts of the overall field of IT Security as a compulsory subject for all students. The paper describes the integration of some rules and recommendations from the SEI Cert C Coding Standard into our introductory C programming course and discusses our experience with the course over the last two years with respect to its contents, realization, evaluation and examination.