Code responsibly with generative AI in C#

Your Web application written in C# works as intended, so you are done, right? But did you consider feeding in incorrect values? 16Gbs of data? A null? An apostrophe? Negative numbers, or specifically -1 or -2^31? Because that’s what the bad guys will do – and the list is far from complete.

Handling security needs a healthy level of paranoia, and this is what this course provides: a strong emotional engagement by lots of hands-on labs and stories from real life, all to substantially improve code hygiene. Mistakes, consequences, and best practices are our blood, sweat and tears.

The curriculum goes through the common Web application security issues following the OWASP Top Ten but goes far beyond it both in coverage and the details.All this is put in the context of C#, and extended by core programming issues, discussing security pitfalls of the C# language and the ASP.NET framework.

So that you are prepared for the forces of the dark side.

So that nothing unexpected happens.

Nothing.

Audience & Prerequisits:

  • C# developers working on Web applications.
  • General C# and Web development

Standards and references:

  • OWASP, CWE and Fortify Taxonomy.
  • 33 Labs and 15 Case Studies

What you will learn:

  • Getting familiar with essential cyber security concepts
  • Understanding how cryptography supports security
  • Learning how to use cryptographic APIs correctly in C#
  • Understanding Web application security issues
  • Detailed analysis of the OWASP Top Ten elements
  • Putting Web application security in the context of C#
  • Going beyond the low hanging fruits
  • Managing vulnerabilities in third party components

Note:

This variant of the course deals extensively with how certain security problems in code are handled by GitHub Copilot.

Through a number of hands-on labs participants will get first hand experience about how to use Copilot responsibly, and how to prompt it to generate the most secure code. In some cases it is trivial, but in most of the cases it is not; and in yet some other cases it is basically impossible.

At the same time, the labs provide general experience with using Copilot in everyday coding practice - what you can expect from it, and what are those areas where you shouldn't rely on it.

 

About The instructor Kiss Balazs

Balázs started in software security two decades ago as a researcher in various EU projects (FP6, FP7, H2020) while also taking part in over 25 commercial security evaluations: threat modeling, design review, manual testing, fuzzing. While breaking things was admittedly more fun, he's now on the other side, helping developers stop attacks at the (literal) source.

To date, he has held over 100 secure coding training courses all over the world about typical code vulnerabilities, protection techniques, and best practices.

His most recent passion is the (ab)use of AI systems, the security of machine learning, and the effect of generative AI on code security.

 

  • Cyber security basics

  • The OWASP Top Ten 2021

    • A01 – Broken Access Control
      • Access control basics
      • Confused deputy
        • Insecure direct object reference (IDOR)
        • Path traversal
        • Lab – Insecure Direct Object Reference
        • Path traversal best practices
        • Lab – Experimenting with path traversal in Copilot
        • Authorization bypass through user-controlled keys
        • Case study – Remote takeover of Nexx garage doors and alarms
        • Lab – Horizontal authorization
      • File upload
        • Unrestricted file upload
        • Good practices
        • Lab – Unrestricted file upload
        • Case study – File upload vulnerability in Citrix ShareFile
    • A02 – Cryptographic Failures
      • Cryptography for developers
        • Cryptography basics
        • Crypto APIs in C#
        • Elementary algorithms
          • Hashing
            • Hashing basics
            • Hashing in C#
            • Lab – Hashing in C#
          • Random number generation
            • Pseudo random number generators (PRNGs)
            • Cryptographically secure PRNGs
            • Weak and strong PRNGs
            • Using random numbers in C#
            • Lab – Using random numbers in C#
            • Case study – Equifax credit account freeze
        • Confidentiality protection
          • Symmetric encryption
            • Block ciphers
            • Modes of operation
            • Modes of operation and IV – best practices
            • Symmetric encryption in C#
            • Symmetric encryption in C# with streams
            • Lab – Symmetric encryption in C#
            • Case study – Padding oracle used in RCE against Citrix ShareFile
          • Asymmetric encryption
            • The RSA algorithm
              • Using RSA – best practices
              • RSA in C#
              • Case study – RSA attacks: Bleichenbacher, ROBOT, and Marvin
          • Combining symmetric and asymmetric algorithms
  • The OWASP Top Ten 2021

    • A03 – Injection
      • Injection principles
      • Injection attacks
      • SQL injection
        • SQL injection basics
        • Lab – SQL injection
        • Attack techniques
        • Content-based blind SQL injection
        • Time-based blind SQL injection
        • SQL injection best practices
          • Input validation
          • Parameterized queries
          • Lab – Using prepared statements
          • Lab – Experimenting with SQL injection in Copilot
          • Case study – SQL injection leading to RCE in Ivanti Endpoint Manager
      • Code injection
        • OS command injection
          • Lab – Command injection
          • OS command injection best practices
          • Avoiding command injection with the right APIs
          • Lab – Command injection best practices
          • Lab – Experimenting with command injection in Copilot
          • Case study – Command injection in Ruckus Wireless AP
      • HTML injection – Cross-site scripting (XSS)
        • Cross-site scripting basics
        • Cross-site scripting types
          • Persistent cross-site scripting
          • Reflected cross-site scripting
          • Client-side (DOM-based) cross-site scripting
        • Lab – Stored XSS
        • Lab – Reflected XSS
        • Case study – XSS to RCE in Azure Service Fabric
        • XSS protection best practices
          • Protection principles – escaping
          • XSS protection APIs
          • Further XSS protection techniques
          • Lab – XSS fix / stored
          • Lab – XSS fix / reflected
    • A04 – Insecure Design
      • The STRIDE model of threats
      • Secure design principles of Saltzer and Schroeder
        • Economy of mechanism
        • Fail-safe defaults
        • Complete mediation
        • Open design
        • Separation of privilege
        • Least privilege
        • Least common mechanism
        • Psychological acceptability
      • Client-side security
        • Frame sandboxing
          • Cross-Frame Scripting (XFS) attacks
          • Lab – Clickjacking
          • Clickjacking beyond hijacking a click
          • Clickjacking protection best practices
          • Lab – Using CSP to prevent clickjacking
    • A05 – Security Misconfiguration
      • Configuration principles
      • XML entities
        • DTD and the entities
        • Entity expansion
        • External Entity Attack (XXE)
          • File inclusion with external entities
          • Server-Side Request Forgery with external entities
          • Lab – External entity attack
          • Case study – XXE vulnerability in SharePoint
          • Preventing XXE
          • Lab – Prohibiting DTD
          • Lab – Experimenting with XXE in Copilot
  • The OWASP Top Ten 2021

    • A06 – Vulnerable and Outdated Components
      • Using vulnerable components
      • Untrusted functionality import
      • Case study – The Polyfill.io supply chain attack
      • Vulnerability management
      • Security of AI generated code
        • Practical attacks against code generation tools
        • Dependency hallucination via generative AI
        • Case study – A history of GitHub Copilot weaknesses (up to mid 2024)
    • A07 – Identification and Authentication Failures
      • Authentication
        • Authentication basics
        • Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
        • Case study – The InfinityGauntlet attack
      • Password management
    • A08 – Software and Data Integrity Failures
      • Integrity protection
        • Message Authentication Code (MAC)
          • Calculating HMAC in C#
          • Lab – Calculating MAC in C#
        • Digital signature
          • Digital signature with RSA
          • Elliptic Curve Cryptography
            • ECC basics
            • Digital signature with ECC
          • Digital signature in C#
            • Lab – Digital signature with ECDSA in C#
      • Subresource integrity
        • Importing JavaScript
        • Lab – Importing JavaScript
      • Insecure deserialization
        • Serialization and deserialization challenges
        • Integrity – deserializing untrusted streams
        • Integrity – deserialization best practices
        • Look ahead deserialization
        • Property Oriented Programming (POP)
          • Creating a POP payload
          • Lab – Creating a POP payload
          • Lab – Using the POP payload
          • Case study – Deserialization RCE in Veeam
          • Summary – POP best practices
          • Lab – Preventing POP with Copilot
    • A9 – Server-side Request Forgery (SSRF)
      • Server-side Request Forgery (SSRF)
      • Case study – SSRF and the Capital One breach
  • Wrap up

    • Secure coding principles
      • Principles of robust programming by Matt Bishop
    • And now what?
      • Software security sources and further reading
      • .NET and C# resources

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