## Motivation

Computer security, or the lack of it, has come to the forefront more and more in the last couple of years. Even so, it is still too often neglected -- we've seen flaws in processors such as Spectre, Meltdown, and RIDL, we've seen insecure IoT devices, and the list goes on. For these reasons, and the fact that world-class research is being done in this area in the VUSec research group, I'm greatly interested in following the Computer Systems Security track of the Computer Science joint degree. The focus on not just the theoretical aspects of security, but also on applying this theory to exploit computer systems and protect them from these exploits appeals to me -- one of the most fun practical assignments in the UvA Informatica bachelor, in my opinion, was the security assignment of the Operating Systems course, which asked the student to use timing attacks, malicious inputs, and various other methods to capture keys. Assignments such as that one fueled my interest in the security side of computer science, and I would love to continue that in the Computer Science master.