Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and the Higgs Boson

The first LHC run has confirmed the Standard Model as the correct theory at the electroweak scale, and the existence of a Higgs-like particle associated with the spontaneous breaking of the electroweak gauge symmetry. These lectures overview the present knowledge on the Higgs boson and discuss alternative scenarios of electroweak symmetry breaking which are already being constrained by the experimental data.