Infosec

Race conditions, format strings, and command injections

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Infosec

Race conditions, format strings, and command injections

Howard Poston

Instructor: Howard Poston

Included with Coursera PlusLearn more

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
Beginner level

Recommended experience

4 hours to complete
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace
Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
Beginner level

Recommended experience

4 hours to complete
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace

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Recently updated!

November 2026

Assessments

3 assignments

Taught in English

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This course is part of the Secure Coding Fundamentals Specialization
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There are 3 modules in this course

This module introduces race conditions, their exploitation and possible mitigations. The advent of parallel processing has made computers more efficient but also created new classes of vulnerabilities. This course describes the theory and practice of race condition vulnerabilities by describing what makes a code vulnerable, how it can be exploited and ways to mitigate the vulnerability.

What's included

7 videos1 assignment

This module introduces format string vulnerabilities, their exploitation and possible mitigations. Print statements are a deceptively simple aspect of programming. By exploiting format string vulnerabilities, an attacker can read from or write to arbitrary memory within a program. This course describes how to identify format string vulnerabilities and how to write code that is not vulnerable to attack.

What's included

7 videos1 assignment

This module introduces command injection vulnerabilities, their exploitation and possible mitigations. Command injection vulnerabilities take advantage of the fact that instructions and data are often mixed within programs. This course demonstrates how command injection vulnerabilities can be exploited by an attacker, what to look out for and how to write code that is immune to this type of attack.

What's included

7 videos1 assignment

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Instructor

Howard Poston
Infosec
10 Courses60,975 learners

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Infosec

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