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EE 58012
Special Topics in EE: Security, Privacy and Robustness in Machine Learning

Faculty Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
Semester Fall 2026-2027
Course EE 58012 - Special Topics in EE: Security, Privacy and Robustness in Machine Learning
Time/Place
Time
Week Day
Place
Date
09:40-11:30
Tue
FENS-L027
Sep 28-Dec 31, 2026
13:40-14:30
Wed
FENS-L027
Sep 28-Dec 31, 2026
Level of course Masters
Course Credits SU Credit:3, ECTS:10
Prerequisites -
Corequisites -
Course Type Lecture

Instructor(s) Information

Mehmet Emre Özfatura

Course Information

Catalog Course Description
This course provides a rigorous introduction to the security and robustness of deep neural network models, covering both threat models and their corresponding countermeasures. Topics progress from foundational attack paradigms — including adversarial examples and backdoor Trojan attacks — through to system-level threats arising in distributed settings. The federated learning framework is examined in depth, with dedicated coverage of data heterogeneity, Byzantine robustness, and privacy-preserving aggregation. Differential privacy is introduced from first principles and developed through its integration into machine learning pipelines and federated systems. Throughout the course, threat models and defense mechanisms are implemented hands-on in Python using PyTorch. A course project requires students to reproduce and critically analyze a selected publication from the recent literature.
Learning Outcomes:
1. Understand the fundamentals of backdoor Trojan threats in machine learning and critically evaluate state-of-the-art defense mechanisms against such attacks
2. Understand the notion of robust learning and adversarial examples, and apply adversarial training techniques to improve model robustness.
3. Understand the core principles of the federated learning framework and identify the key challenges (data heterogeneity/ communication bottleneck etc.) arising in its practical deployment
4. Understand the Byzantine threat model in federated learning and evaluate state-of-the-art aggregation strategies robust to Byzantine attacks.
5. Understand the concept of differential privacy and analyze how it is incorporated into machine learning pipelines and federated learning systems
6. Gain hands-on experience implementing threat and defense models in Python using PyTorch libraries, and design ablation studies to evaluate the robustness and generalization of deep learning models.
Course Objective
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Course Materials

Resources:
Technology Requirements:

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