ENISA Secure Software Engineering Initiatives
ENISA Secure Software Engineering Initiatives
ENISA Secure Software Engineering Initiatives
About ENISA
ENISA is an agency of the EU, established to contribute to a high level of network and information security within the EU. More
information about ENISA and a digital copy of this report can be found on ENISAs website.
Project manager
Vangelis Stavropoulos (ENISA, Secure applications and services group)
Contractor
The list of initiatives has been compiled by Isdefe (Madrid, Spain)
External reviewer
This report has been reviewed by Yaroslav Usenko (KPMG CT, Amstelveen)
Contact details
For enquiries about this report, please email:
Vangelis Stavropoulos (vangelis.stavropoulos (at) enisa.europa.eu) or
Ulf Bergstrom, ENISA spokesperson (press (at) enisa.europa.eu)
Legal notice
Notice must be taken that this publication represents the views and interpretations of the editors and authors, unless stated
otherwise. This publication should not be construed to be an action of ENISA or the ENISA bodies unless adopted pursuant to
ENISA Regulation (EC) No 460/2004. This publication does not necessarily represent the stateof theart in Internet
interconnection and it may be updated from time to time. Thirdparty sources are quoted as appropriate. ENISA is not
responsible for the content of the external sources including external websites referenced in this publication. This publication
is intended for educational and information purposes only. Neither ENISA nor any person acting on its behalf is responsible for
the use that might be made of the information contained in this publication.
Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.
2011 European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), all rights reserved.
INDEX
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................................... 2
1. INTERNATIONAL SSE INITIATIVES ............................................................................................ 4
1.1.
1.2.
1.3.
1.4.
1.5.
1.6.
1.7.
1.8.
1.9.
1.10.
1.11.
1.12.
1.13.
1.14.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Most high-profile cyberattacks are enabled by flaws in computer systems software, so-called
software vulnerabilities in the application layer. These software vulnerabilities can have major
consequences:
In March 2011 the LizaMoon attack attackers exploited so-called SQL injection
vulnerabilities in an estimated 500.000 websites. The end-goal is to install a rogue
antivirus product on the machines of website visitors.
The Zeus and the Nimkey viruses exploit software vulnerabilities in desktop
software. Zeus has been around since 2007 and is used by a variety of criminals to
attack government and banking systems, while Nimkey was used this year to steal
millions of euros from the EU carbon emissions market.
Requirements engineering
Procurement criteria for secure software
Risk-based development
Security in agile methods
Policy frameworks for web access control.
Security testing methodologies and code reviewing, and
Patch and update management
ENISA recently finished and published a study on the working and impact of botnets.
We appreciate and invite suggestions (from readers) for adding missing initiatives to this list,
as we may update this document in the future (see contact information).
Of particular note is that we found no government-driven SEE initiatives in the EU: In the EU,
international industry-led initiatives make up the majority, while in the US there are some major
government-driven SSE initiatives. For example, Build Security In is an example of such an
initiative, run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the software assurance
program.
Our next step is to look beyond the initiatives and understand what their impact might be, or
has been, in terms of addressing software vulnerabilities at the application layer, and how we
can improve secure software engineering in practice. To discuss these and other ideas, we
intend to organise a meeting with representatives of these initiatives in a suitable and
convenient forum.
1.
1.1.
OWASP is an independent not-for-profit organisation that deals mainly with web applications
security. This initiative is organised as a collaborative community, divided into local chapters in
order to foster and support collaboration among its members. Almost every EU Member State
(MS) has a National OWASP chapter (see section 2.2).
OWASP is not affiliated to any specific technology company. Membership categories can be
individual, educational, end-user organisation, consulting organisation or vendor; each one
with a different annual membership fee.
OWASP deals with application security as a people, process and technology problem
because, according to OWASP, the most effective approaches to application security include
improvements in all these areas.
URL
Contact Method
http://www.owasp.org
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/About_OWASP
Email, mailing list, web form, phone and address
Country of HQ location
Geographic Scope
Type
US
International
Various Industry (not for profit)
The community works to produce tools and documents in three main areas:
Its main outputs are good practice guides on the above-mentioned areas, such as the OWASP
Testing Guide, OWASP Code Review or Software Assurance Maturity Model.
It also publishes Top 10 reports on risks to web applications. Another main activity area of
OWASP is annual conferences in Asia, Europe and North and South America, and global
AppSec summit local chapter meetings and conferences.
OWASP is trying to incorporate an activity area for training and software security knowledge,
but this is currently in development. It is expected that efforts from the OWASP Exams,
OWASP Academy Portal and OWASP Education projects wil be integrated in a coherent
manner.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
The OWASP AppSec conference series
Dedicated to bringing together industry, government, and security researchers and
practitioners to discuss the state of the art in application security.
OWASP local chapters
Exist in most European countries (see 4,2) and are the focal point for involvement, apart from
projects.
OWASP podcast
Publishes in-depth interviews with OWASP volunteers, industry experts and leaders within the
field of web application security.
Video collection
Makes available video training and presentations on application security.
Good Practice
OWASP Secure Coding Practices Quick Reference Guide v2.0
[Protection Area] A technology-agnostic set of general software security coding practices, in a
comprehensive checklist format, that can be integrated into the development life cycle.
OWASP Developers Guide v2.0 (2005)
[Protection Area] An extensive document covering all aspects of web application and web
service security.
OWASP Code Review Guide v1.1
[Detection Area] IA guide that captures best practice for reviewing code.
OWASP Testing Guide v3.0
[Detection Area] A guide on application security testing procedures and checklists.
Standards
Application Security Verification Standard (ASVS)
[Detection Area] The ASVS defines an international standard for conducting application
security assessments. It covers both automated and manual approaches for assessing
(verifying) applications, using both security testing and code review techniques.
Tools
AntiSamy
[Protection Area] Java and .NET APIs validating rich HTML/CSS input from users to prevent
cross-site scripting and phishing attacks.
Documentation Resources
OWASP .NET Project
[Protect Area] The purpose is to provide a central repository of information and tools for
software professionals who use the Microsoft .NET Framework for web applications and
services.
OWASP Top Ten Project
[Detect Area] An awareness document that describes the top ten web application security
risks, and is referenced by the PCI DSS.
OWASP AppSec FAQ Project
[Life-cycle Security Area] A FAQ covering many application security topics.
OWASP Legal Project
[Life-cycle Security area] A project focused on providing contract language for acquiring
secure software.
OWASP Application Security Desk Reference (ASDR)
This project is helpful as basic reference material when performing such activities as threat
modelling, security architecture review, security testing, code review, and metrics. Any
application security risk has a threat agent (attacker) who is using an attack to target a
vulnerability (typically a missing or broken control). If successful, this attack will have both a
technical and business impact.
OWASP Comprehensive, Lightweight Application Security Process (CLASP)
[Life-cycle Security Area] Provides a structured and organised approach for moving security
concerns into the early stages of the SDLC, whenever possible. See section 0.
Software Assurance Maturity Model (SAMM)
An open framework for helping organisations formulate and implement a strategy for software
security tailored to the specific risks facing the organisation. See section 0.
AppSensor Project
[Protect Area] Defines a conceptual framework, methodology, pilot implementations and
example code that offer prescriptive guidance on how to implement attack-aware intrusion
detection and automated real-time response in an existing application.
OWASP Ruby on Rails Security Guide
[Protection Area] Provides a coding and configuration guide addressing the vulnerabilities and
their associated countermeasures. Ruby on Rails is an open source web application
framework based on the Ruby programming language.
1.2.
The Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation, Common Criteria (CC),
is a framework in which computer system users can specify their security, functional and
assurance requirements including software. Vendors can then implement and/or make
claims about the security attributes of their products including software while testing
laboratories can evaluate the products including software to determine if they actually
justify the claims made. In other words, CC provides assurance that the process of
specification, implementation and evaluation of a computer security product, including
There are seven evaluation levels, Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL), corresponding to
different packages of assurance requirements:
Countries sign the Common Criteria Recognition Agreement (CCRA) in order to rely on the CC
certificates issued by any CB. This agreement applies from EAL1 to EAL4.
The following countries have signed the CCRA:
URL
http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/
http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/contact/
Email
International
Government
Agence Nationale de la Scurit des Systmes
d'Information (ANSSI)
http://www.ssi.gouv.fr
Contact Method
Country
http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/ccra/members/
Email, phone and address
France
Bundesamt fr Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik
URL
http://www.bsi.bund.de
Contact Method
http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/ccra/members/
Email, phone and address
Country
Germany
Netherlands National Communications Security Agency
(NLNCSA)
URL
Contact Method
http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/ccra/members/
Email, phone and address
Address
Netherlands
The Norwegian National Security Authority operates the
Norwegian Certification Authority for IT Security (SERTIT)
URL
http://www.sertit.no
Contact Method
http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/ccra/members/
Email, phone and address
Country
Norway
Organismo de Certificacin de la Seguridad de las
Tecnologas de la Informacin
URL
http://www.oc.ccn.cni.es
Contact Method
http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/ccra/members/
Email and address
Country
Spain
Swedish Certification Body for IT-Security (CSEC)
URL
www.csec.se
Contact Method
http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/ccra/members/
Phone and address
Country
Sweden
http://www.cesg.gov.uk
Contact Method
http://www.commoncriteriaportal.org/ccra/members/
Email, phone and address
Country
United Kingdom
For instance, EU Directive 1999/93/CE for electronic signatures and EU Decision C(2003)
2439 specify requirements for secure signature-creation devices (SSCD) by CWA 14169 (PP
issued by the European Committee for Standardisation CEN). The Spanish eID card (DNIe)
has been evaluated by the Spanish CB (see DNIe v1.13) according to the appropriate PP and
required EAL.
Usually, new versions of products need to be certified again, so it is quite difficult for an open
source community, without industry or funded support, to evaluate their products according to
CC.
The Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation and the Common
Methodology for Information Technology Security Evaluation had been published as ISO
standards.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Standards
Common Methodology for Information Technology Security Evaluation and Common Criteria
for Information Technology Security Evaluation
These form the technical basis for an international agreement (the CCRA). Version 2.3 has
also been published as ISO/IEC 15408:2005 and ISO/IEC 18045:2005.
Future Related Standard
JTC 1/SC 27
ISO/IEC NP 20004
Information technology, Security techniques, Secure software development and evaluation
under ISO/IEC 15408 and ISO/IEC 18405. See section Error! Reference source not found..
1.3.
IEEE CS is the IEEE chapter related to IT. This initiative is a not-for-profit membership
organisation and its main purposes are scientific, literary, and educational in character. The
main projects of IEEE CS are aimed at publishing standards on IT technology. SSE can be
found at the IEEE Computer Societys Technical Committee on Security and Privacy.
10
URL
http://www.computer.org
Contact Method
http://www.computer.org/portal/web/guest/contact
Email, phone and address
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
The main outputs of this initiative are books, conferences, conference publications,
magazines, online courses, software development certifications, standards and technical
journals.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
An archival Journal, published bimonthly, interested in well-defined theoretical results and
empirical studies that have a potential impact on the construction, analysis or management of
software.
IEEE Software Magazine
This bimonthly magazine focuses on software development areas: requirements, design, tools,
quality, open source issues and terminology. Its mission is to build a community of leading
software practitioners. From time to time, there are articles about security on software
development.
IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine
This bimonthly magazine covers diverse aspects of the security and dependability of
computer-based systems, including legal, ethical and privacy issues. Members of the Build
Security In initiative (see section 3.2) often write articles in this magazine about software
security best practice. Articles usually address different fields of software security (mainly
weakness and models).
International Symposium on Engineering Secure Software and Systems
See section 0.
Good Practice
Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK)
The SWEBOK Version 3, alpha version, will include Security as one of the proposed
Supplemental Knowledge Areas.
Standards
Software & Systems Engineering Standards Committee (S2ESC)
Formal Liaisons with ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7. See section 1.4.
11
1.4.
ISOs main outputs are published standards that are publicly available for purchase. Related to
SSE are 5 published technical reports and standards ISO/IEC TR 15026-1:2010, ISO/IEC
TR 24731-1:2007, ISO/IEC TR 24772:2010, ISO/IEC 15408 and ISO/IEC 18405 and 2
different ongoing projects related to SSE.
URL
http://www.iso.org
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Contact Method
Country of Secretariat
Canada
JTC 1/SC 22 Programming languages, their
environments and system software interfaces
Contact Method
Country of Secretariat
USA
JTC 1/SC 27 IT Security techniques
Contact Method
Country of Secretariat
Germany
12
RELEVANT RESULTS
Published Technical Reports
JTC 1/SC 7
ISO/IEC TR 15026-1:2010 Systems and software engineering - Systems and software
assurance -- Part 1: Concepts and vocabulary.
This ISO document states:Within software and systems assurance and closely related fields,
many specialties and subspecialties share concepts but have differing vocabularies and
perspectives. This part of ISO/IEC 15026 provides a unifying set of underlying concepts and
an unambiguous use of terminology across these various fields.
JTC 1/SC 22
ISO/IEC TR 24731-1:2007 Information technology - Programming languages, their
environments and system software interfaces - Extensions to the C library - Part 1: Boundschecking interfaces.
Specifies a series of extensions of the programming language C, specified by International
Standard ISO/IEC 9899:1999. These extensions can be useful in the mitigation of security
vulnerabilities in programs, and consist of a new predefined macro, and new functions,
macros, and types declared or defined in existing standard headers.
ISO/IEC TR 24772:2010 Information technology - Programming languages - Guidance on
avoiding vulnerabilities in programming languages through language selection and use.
Specifies software programming language vulnerabilities to be avoided in the development of
systems where assured behaviour is required for security, safety, mission critical and business
critical software. In general, this guidance is applicable to the software developed, reviewed, or
maintained for any application. Vulnerabilities are described in a generic manner that is
applicable to a broad range of programming languages.
It is intended to provide guidance spanning multiple programming languages, so that
application developers will be better able to avoid the programming constructs that lead to
vulnerabilities in software written in their chosen language and their attendant consequences.
This guidance can also be used by developers to produce or select source code evaluation
tools that can discover and eliminate some constructs that could lead to vulnerabilities in their
software or to select a programming language that avoids anticipated problems.
Projects under Development
JTC 1/SC 7
ISO/IEC FCD 15026-2 - Systems and software engineering - Systems and software
assurance -- Part 2: Assurance case.
Specifies minimum requirements for the structure and contents of an assurance case to
improve the consistency and comparability of assurance cases and to facilitate stakeholder
communications, engineering decisions, and other uses of assurance cases.
13
According to this ISO document An assurance case includes a top-level claim for a property
of a system or product (or set of claims), systematic argumentation regarding this claim, and
the evidence and explicit assumptions that underly this argumentation. Arguing through
multiple levels of subordinate claims, this structured argumentation connects the top-level
claim to the evidence and assumptions.
ISO/IEC CD 15026-3 Systems and software engineering -- Systems and software assurance -Part 3: Integrity levels. Relates integrity levels to the assurance case and includes related
requirements for their use with and without an assurance case.
According to this ISO document A software integrity level denotes a range of values of a
software property necessary to maintain system risks within tolerable limits.
JTC 1/SC 27
ISO/IEC NP 20004
Information technology - Security techniques - Secure software development and evaluation
under ISO/IEC 15408 and ISO/IEC 18405.
Looks into a different and urgent problem associated with practical use of the Common
Criteria, namely the relationship between development and evaluation processes dealing with
the analysis of potential attacks. It is related to CAPEC initiative (see section 3.5).
1.5.
The ISA is a global, non-profit organisation that develops standards for industry, certifies
industry professionals, provides education and training, publishes books and technical articles,
and hosts conferences and exhibitions for automation professionals.
URL
http://www.isa.org
General contact
Email, phone and address
Contact Method
Standards contact
Email and phone (about standards)
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
ISA99 standard Manufacturing and Control Systems Security has some parts related to SSE.
Currently, only parts 99.01.01 - Terminology, Concepts, and Models, 99.02.01 - Establishing
an Industrial Automation and Control Systems Security Program and 99.03.01 - Security
technologies for Industrial Automation and Control Systems are published. ISA and the
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) negotiated the adoption of ISA 99 standards
as IEC 62443 standards as well. ISA members pay a regular fee (annual or biannual),
according to their type of membership, to obtain ISA benefits such as access to technical
information and professional development resources.
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RELEVANT RESULTS
Proposed Standards
ISA TR99.02.03 Patch Management in the IACS Environment
This technical report addresses the topic of patch management in an Industrial Automation
and Control Systems (IACS) environment for asset owner and vendor communities. It is aimed
at providing guidance in patch-testing and patch-management according to an acceptable
level of risk.
ISA 99.03.04 Product Development Requirements
This standard will address the security requirements for product development.
Draft Standards
ISA 99.03.03 System Security Requirements and Security Assurance Levels
This standard defines security requirements that are grouped into seven categories:
1) Access control, 2) Use control, 3) Data integrity, 4) Data confidentiality, 5) Restrict data
flows, 6) Timely response to an event and 7) Network resource availability. Each category
includes a mapping of security requirements to security assurance levels.
1.6.
http://www.safecode.org
Contact Method
http://www.safecode.org/contact.php
Email, phone and address
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
15
RELEVANT RESULTS
Training
Security Engineering Training
A framework for corporate training programs on the principles of secure software
development.
Good Practice
Software Integrity Controls
An assurance-based approach to minimizing risks in the software supply chain. Based on the
practices of SAFECode members, the report provides software integrity controls for software
sourcing, software development, software testing, software delivery and software resilience.
The Software Supply Chain Integrity Framework
This defines risks and responsibilities for making software secure in the global supply chain.
Based on the experience of SAFECode members, it describes the software supply chain
(staircase model of software suppliers) and the principles for designing software integrity
controls.
Fundamental Practices for Secure Software Development
Based on the practices of SAFECode members, this outlines a set of practices for secure
software development that can be applied in the different phases of the software development
life cycle.
Software Assurance: An Overview of Current Industry Best Practices
This outlines the development methods and integrity controls used by SAFECode members to
improve software assurance and security in the delivery.
1.7.
SANS SSI provides training, certification and a library of research and community initiatives to
help developers, architects, programmers and application security managers protect their
software/web applications.
This initiative gathers and provides up-to-date technical information, as a free resource, on the
most recent attack vectors and application security vulnerabilities, including an updated blog,
weekly newsletters, webcasts, articles and documents on software security.
URL
http://www.sans-ssi.org
Contact Method
http://www.sans-ssi.org/contact.php
Email and address
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Academic
16
Training for web application security and hacking, secure coding, software security
testing, code review and PCI compliance
Language-specific, secure coding training for Java/JEE, .NET, C, C#, PHP and
others
Programmer/Developer Certification (GIAC Secure Software Programmer
Certification)
Free research and news resources that are up to date with the most recent attack
vectors and application vulnerabilities
SANS also publishes yearly reports on the Top 25 most dangerous programming errors (see
e.g. http://www.sans.org/top25-software-errors/)
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
SANS SSI Newsletters
SANS Application Security Street Fighter Blog
Application Security Webcasts
Training
Free Application Security Mini Courses
Free online application security courses of 20-30 minutes
Security Programming Videos
The videos with "introducing" in the title are courses, the rest are mini-lessons.
Application Security Brochure
Brochure on SANS Application Security Training.
GIAC Secure Software Programmer (GSSP) Certification
See section 0.
Resources
Application Security Resources
Application security whitepapers and application security webcasts.
Security Laboratory
The "Security Laboratory" is an informal set of articles and whitepapers about security, IT and
the computer security industry.
17
It also includes fairly extensive prevention and remediation steps that developers can take to
mitigate or eliminate the weakness.
1.8.
WASC produces open-source best practice for web applications. WASC states its mission as
to develop, adopt, and advocate standards for web application security.
URL
http://www.webappsec.org/
Contact Method
[email protected]
Email
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Industry (non-profit)
18
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
Web Security Articles
The Web Security Mailing List
Resources
Web Application Security Scanner Evaluation Criteria
A set of criteria for evaluating web application security.
The Web Hacking Incidents Database
Database of web applications and related security incidents.
The Script Mapping Project
List of ways of executing script within a web page without using <script> tags.
Distributed Open Proxy Honeypots
Analysis of HTTP traffic through specially configured open proxies to categorise the requests
into threat classifications.
Web Security Glossary
Index of terms and terminology relating to web applications security.
Web Security Threat Classification
An attempt to develop and promote industry-standard terminology for describing threats to the
security of a website.
Web Application Firewall Evaluation Criteria
Development of detailed criteria for evaluating a web application firewall (WAF).
Web Application Security Statistics
Collection of application vulnerability statistics for identifying and mapping application security
issues on enterprise websites.
1.9.
http://ifsq.nl/
Contact Method
http://ifsq.nl/contact.html
Country of HQ location
The Netherlands
19
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Industry (non-profit)
IfSQ analysed, quantified and augmented existing research on software quality, and distilled
this into a collection of Defect Indicators: strong indications that code will be prone to error,
hard to debug or costly to maintain. They have collated these indicators into a coordinated set
of three standards, which are published on its website, in booklet form and in the form of
courses and workshops. Most of the evaluation criteria, especially those like major string,
parameter not checked and unexpected state not trapped, are relevant to improvements in
software security.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Resources
Software Quality Standards
Levels 1, 2 and 3 are available.
SYMBIAN - NOKIA
Application development can be done with standard C++.
A signed application is required from developers to perform certainn restricted functions in the
device.
The following resource is available for Symbian secure development:
Symbian OS Platform Security
This is a book published by Wiley about the security architecture of Symbian OS v9. Its
security architecture is relevant to developers who use Symbian OS in the creation of devices
or add-on applications. It contains the following specific chapters: How to Write Secure
Applications, How to Write Secure Servers and How to Write Secure Plug-ins.
The following resource was available for Symbian secure development:
Apps: Fundamentals of Symbian C++/Platform Security
An article explaining the fundamentals of programming applications in C++ for Symbian, taking
into account the architectural restrictions on services and data access. 'Platform security' is the
20
ANDROID - GOOGLE
This Is a free, open-source OS based on the Linux kernel.
Application development is done with JAVA, using the Android Software Development Kit
(SDK).
Available literature is focused mainly on the Android Security model.
Security and Permissions
Taken from an Android developers website, this developers guide explains the security
architecture, application signatures and permissions management.
Android Security FAQ
Also taken from an Android developers website, this is a FAQ about Android security.
Developing Secure Mobile Applications for Android
This guide goes through the Android security model, including many of the key security
mechanisms and how they can be used safely.
Understanding Android's Security Framework
This is a tutorial from the Systems and Internet Infrastructure Security (SIIS) Laboratory in the
Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Penn State University.
RIM - BLACKBERRY
The BlackBerry API is available for developers, but applications need to be digitally signed to
perform some functions. The application development is done with Java.
Security for BlackBerry solutions is highlighted. A Security Development Guide is available
from BlackBerrys website:
Security - Development Guide - BlackBerry Java SDK
This document explains the cryptographic API, how to protect the application data (content
protection), the control of permitted APIs for developers, and code signing.
IOS - APPLE
An SDK (software development kit) allows third-party developers to make mobile iOS
applications. But an application can only be loaded on to the devices through AppStore
(property of Apple). Application development is done with Objective-C, as is usual in Macs
OS.
A Secure Coding Guide for developers is available from Apples website:
Secure Coding Guide
21
This document discusses several common sources of vulnerability in programs and gives
advice on how to avoid them, with a special emphasis on programs that run on the Mac OS X,
Mac OS X Server and iOS operating systems.
http://www.wacapps.net
Contact Method
http://www.wacapps.net/web/portal/contact-us
Web form and address
Country of HQ location
UK
Geographic Scope
International
Type
BONDI, JIL and GSMA OneAPI have started to remove or reduce the fragmentation of Internet
-based features on mobile devices. All of these initiatives are linked to WAC:
WAC plans to use both the JIL and BONDI requirements, evolving these into a
common specification. The long-term goal is to work collaboratively with the W3C
towards a common standard based on a converged solution.
22
WAC will also ensure that developers can always gain access to any network and
back-end enablers that are exposed by the Operators. The GSMA One API activity
will play a key role in this provision.
Mobile operators, device manufacturers, internet companies or interested parties can take part
in the WAC at various membership levels. WAC has published its initial SDK to developers:
WAC 2.0 specification, which includes both Widget Security and Privacy, has been
published as Proposed Release Version.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
WAC analyst call
These were events held in 2010, providing information about WACs progress and activities.
WAC Developer event
WAC Technology and WAC delivery, devices and developers are included in this
programme.
Expected Good Practice
WAC will develop good practices based on BONDI, JIL and GSMA OneAPI projects. It is
expected that security will be taken into account.
Expected Standards
The WAC platform will be based on standards for establishingh a set of APIs. These will be
standardised. It is expected that security will be taken into account.
Specifications
Widget Security (WAC 1.0)
The WAC Security mechanism uses code signing and digital signature verification to prevent
unauthorised access to handset APIs and support user protection provided by operators.
A widget using the security mechanism must operate in one of two security domains:
23
www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_CLASP_Project
The CLASP process is presented through five high-level perspectives called CLASP Views.
These views are broken down into activities that contain process components. The CLASP
views, their description and relationships are:
Concepts View
The interactions between CLASP process components are explained.
Role-Based View
The roles required by security projects are explained.
Also applies to activities and vulnerability views.
Activity-Assessment View
A CLASP activities assessment is performed according to the vulnerability
view.
Activity-Implementation View
CLASP activities, as selected in the activity-assessment view, are performed.
Vulnerability View
Vulnerabilities and countermeasures are identified in order to feed the
activities views.
The aims of this project are to make these materials widely available, as well as to provide a
forum for the community through which they can contribute material back to CLASP for
everyones benefit. CLASP version 1.2 is the latest release.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Security Process
CLASP version 1.2
24
Microsoft SDL is a methodology developed and implemented by Microsoft for projects in which
security is considered a basic element of the software development life cycle. This
methodology can be applied, not only to Microsoft environment-based software, but also to
other environments.
Microsoft publishes this methodology by means of different guides, which cover different
areas, depending on the types of application or the way software is implemented. The
methodology is evolving continuously. Microsoft has recently released version 5.
URL
www.microsoft.com/security/sdl
Contact Method
support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=mscom#tab0
Email, chat, phone and address
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Industry (Microsoft)
Combining a holistic and practical approach, the SDL introduces security and privacy
throughout all phases of the development process. Its goal is to protect end-users.
Microsofts SDL Pro network provides a means of disseminating the methodology to the
software engineering community and also enables them to cooperate. The network consists of
consultants, training companies and tools providers, who specialise in application security and
have substantial experience of, and expertise in, the SDL methodology and technologies.
They also offer their services to other companies to help implement the methodology in their
processes.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Guidance
Microsoft SDL Process Guidance version 5.0
25
This guidance illustrates the way Microsoft applies the SDL to its products and technologies. It
includes security and privacy requirements and recommendations for secure software
development. It addresses SDL guidance for Waterfall and Spiral development, Agile
development, web applications and Line of Business applications. IT policy makers and
software development organisations can leverage this content to enhance and inform their
own software security and privacy assurance programs.
Microsoft SDL for Agile Development
This documentation is not an exhaustive reference for the SDL process as practised at
Microsoft, but is for illustrative purposes only.
Microsoft SDL for Line-of-Business Applications
This documentation is not an exhaustive reference on the SDL process as practised at
Microsoft, but is for illustrative purposes only.
The Security Development Lifecycle
This is a book that provides guidance through each stage of the SDL, from education and
design to testing and post-release. The authors are security experts from the Microsoft
Security Engineering Team.
Simplified Implementation of the Microsoft SDL
This document illustrates the core concepts of the Microsoft SDL and discusses the
individual security activities that need to be performed in order to claim compliance with
the SDL process, including: roles and responsibilities, mandatory security activities, optional
security activities and the application security verification process.
SDL Quick Security Reference (QSR)
With the SDL QSR, the SDL team introduces a series of basic guidance papers designed
to address common vulnerabilities from the perspective of multiple business roles
business decision-maker, architect, developer and tester/QA.
Securing Applications
This documentation is aimed at developers of .NET Framework for writing security code. It
includes: Key Security Concepts, Code Access Security, Role-Based Security, Cryptographic
Services, Security Policy Management, Security Policy Best Practice, Secure Coding
Guidelines and Security Tools.
26
A downloadable template that automatically incorporates the policy, process and tools
associated with the SDL for Agile development guidance, into the Microsoft Solutions
Framework for Agile software development (MSF-Agile) and the Visual Studio environment.
The Microsoft SDL Tools
A map of the available free tools and templates for each SDL stage.
From the SAMM project website: the resources provided by SAMM will aid in:
For each security practice, three Maturity Levels are defined in terms of specific activities and
metrics that an organisation could adopt in order to reduce security risks and increase
software assurance.
27
RELEVANT RESULTS
The model is available in XML and has been translated into other languages:
http://www.opensamm.org/download/
This page also lists supporting tools.
Maturity Model
SAMM version 1.0
http://www.sse-cmm.org
Contact Method
http://www.sse-cmm.org/contact/contact.asp
Email, phone and address
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
This model has eleven security process areas where each area includes a set of base
practices. These areas focus on controls, threats and the discovery and elimination of
vulnerabilities:
Assess Impact
Assess Threat
Assess Vulnerability
Coordinate Security
28
RELEVANT RESULTS
Maturity Model
Model Description
Standard
ISO/IEC 21827
http://bsimm.com/
Contact Method
http://bsimm.com/contact/
Email, mailing list and web form.
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
Type
Industry
BSIMM has developed the Software Security Framework (SSF). SSF provides a common
vocabulary for describing the most important elements of a software security framework within
a firm.
Domains and practices common to most software security experiences were identified. The
BSIMM describes 109 activities that any organisation can put into practice. The activities are
described in terms of the SSF, which identifies twelve practices grouped into 4 domains, 3
practices by domain, as shown in the figure below, taken from the BSIMM2 document. For
each practice and maturity level there is an association one activity - one objective.
The domains are:
1.
Governance
Practices that help organise, manage, and measure a software security framework.
Staff development is also a central governance practice.
29
2.
Intelligence
Collections of corporate knowledge used in carrying out software security activities
throughout an organisation. Collections include both proactive security guidance and
organisational threat modelling.
3.
SSDL Touchpoints
Practices associated with the analysis and assurance of particular software
developments, artefacts and processes. All software security methodologies include
these practices.
4.
Deployment
Practices that interface with traditional network security and software maintenance.
Software configuration, maintenance, and other environment issues have a direct
impact on software security.
The maturity model is presented as a series of activities associated with practices. Goals for
each level of practice are identified. Goals can be further split into objectives for the
practice/level and are associated with activities. As an example, the following figure, taken
from the BSIMM2 document, shows the maturity model for the Training practice of the
Governance domain.
30
In November 2009, the authors of BSIMM wrote an article in InformIT about BSIMM Europe.
The differences between Europe and the US were explored because 9 firms of the BSIMM
study are based in Europe. The findings of the article were as follows:
The Europeans tend to carry out fewer assurance activities (for example,
reviewing source code to look for bugs) and, instead, focus more energy getting a
handle on the problem and meeting compliance criteria through penetration
testing.
European software security initiatives put more emphasis on process than their
US counterparts. this process thinking is at least partially driven by regulatory
needs. The article authors found plenty of emphasis on privacy in Europe.
In the case of the European firms, it may have been easier to expand existing
frameworks (e.g., BS7799, ITIL) to include software security governance activities,
so that happened first.
an over-focus on process may cause some of the technical activities to take a
back-seat role. For example, there is less emphasis on Code Review and Security
Testing in Europe.
Training is also an important practice area with less emphasis in Europe.
There are fifteen BSIMM activities that were not observed in BSIMM Europe at all
The Attack Models practice. The articles authors believe this reflects a general
cultural reluctance in Europe to share information about attacks (that is, to restrict
distribution of attack knowledge to a limited set of people on a need-to-know
basis).
The Security Testing practice. The articles authors relate the above practice to this
one where the notion of sharing information about security tests with testers
cuts against the cultural grain. By contrast, the US market has embraced the
31
attackers' perspective, which has come to play a critical role in US assurance and
analysis regimes.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Maturity Model
BSIMM2 Describes the maturity model.
http://www.motorola.com
Contact Method
General contact
Email, phone and address
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International (Motorola)
Type
Industry (Motorola)
Within Motorola Software, it was important to define a model that was closely aligned with the
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) model aimed at improving the processes of an
organisation in order to build on the success of the adoption of these models by software
centres all over the world. The CMMI model was used as a reference model, the basis on
which this security model was developed. The five additional process areas identified for
inclusion in the security model were:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
From Motorolas point of view, it was clear that secure development practices had to be part of
normal SDLC processes. Motorola attempted to incorporate these practices into an existing
industry-standard, process-improvement framework like CMMI. Once these security practices
are included in the CMMI, Motorola withdraws the MSSDM.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Potential Standard Contribution
32
http://distrinet.cs.kuleuven.be/events/essos2011
Contact Method
ESSoS11
Email
Country of HQ location
Belgium
Geographic Scope
International
Type
The 2011 symposium is sponsored by the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM), Special
Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT), Special Interest Group on Security, Audit
and Control (SIGSAC) and IEEE Computer Society.
The list of suggested topics is:
33
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
The proceedings of the symposium are published by Springer-Verlag in the Lecture Notes in
the Computer Science Series (e.g. ESSOS10).
Recent Past Editions
ESSOS09
The 18 accepted papers of ESSOS09 were divided into five categories:
34
http://homes.dico.unimi.it/~monga/sess11.html
Contact Method
http://homes.dico.unimi.it/~monga/sess11.html
Email
Country of HQ location
Italy
Geographic Scope
International
Type
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
35
Accepted papers are included in ICSE proceedings. These are available from the ACM Digital
Library and the IEEE Digital Library.
Recent Editions
SESS 2009
Was titled A secure software engineering. The SESS organising committee accepted ten
papers, divided into two main sections: Full papers and Position papers. As the organising
committees classification is generic, we propose a classification by topic:
Policy verification and enforcement
Its main objective is to model or specify requirements to SSE (1 full paper and 1
position paper).
Secure system and software development
Its main objective is to assess the security of the whole system (2 position papers and
3 full papers).
Attack analysis and prevention
Its main objective is to describe attack patterns or countermeasures against an attack
of some kind (2 position papers and 1 full paper all of them related to XSS).
SESS 2010
Was titled New horizons for secure systems. The SESS organising committee accepted 10
papers, divided into 2 main sections: Full papers and Position papers. As the organising
committees classification is generic we propose a classification by topic:
Policy verification and enforcement
Its main objective is to model or specify requirements to SSE (2 full papers and 2
position papers).
Secure system and software development
Its main objective is to assess the security of a whole system (1 position paper and 2
full papers).
Attack analysis and prevention
Its main objective is to describe attack patterns or countermeasures against an attack
of some kind (2 position papers and 1 full paper).
36
The IJSSEs mission is to provide a forum where software engineers and security experts can
exchange innovative ideas about security-aware software systems and address security
concerns in software development practices.
Some sample articles are publicly available.
URL
http://www.igiglobal.com/Bookstore/TitleDetails.aspx?TitleId=1159
Contact Method
http://www.igi-global.com/contact.aspx
Email, phone and address
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
IJSSE is published quarterly in both printed and online editions, Its main funding comes from
both individual and institutional subscriptions.
Topics discussed in this journal include (but are not limited to) the following:
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
37
1.13. CERTIFICATION
International certification related to SSE was split into the following subsections. The types of
certification selected were determined by desktop research, taking account of our own
experience and knowledge.
http://www.sans-ssi.org/certification/
This certification focuses on the real issues behind the most common vulnerabilities and
security issues in applications. The exams are technical and language-specific (Java or C#)
and many of the questions use real code examples. The exams help organisations meet four
objectives, which are to:
Identify shortfalls in the security knowledge of in-house programmers and help the
individuals close the gap.
Ensure that outsourced programmers have adequate secure-coding skills.
Appoint new employees who will not need remedial training in secure
programming.
Ensure that each major development project has at least one person with
advanced secure programming skills.
After acquiring this certification, programmers will be aware of the common security flaws
found in specific programming environments (JAVA or .NET), and will know how to avoid
those problems that are due principally to application vulnerabilities.
The GSSP certification will be valid for four years.
http://www.eccouncil.org
Contact Method
http://www.eccouncil.org/contact_us.aspx
38
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Industry
The different types of certification offered by the EC-Council in SSE-related areas are
described in the following sections.
39
40
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/mcse.aspx
Contact Method
http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=learning#tab0
Email, chat, phone and address
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Industry (Microsoft)
To qualify for the MCSE Security on Windows Server 2003 certification, eight exams in any
order must be passed:
The following four exams on networking systems:
CompTIA Security+
41
o
o
o
Many exams in this certification track have been withdrawn. If a required exam was passed
before it was withdrawn, it can be used towards certification. The certification will not expire.
https://www.isc2.org/csslp/default.aspx
CSSLP Contact
Web form
Contact Method
CISSP Contact
Web form
General Contact
Web form, phone and address
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Establish best practice in order to limit the proliferation of security vulnerabilities that
result from insufficient development processes
Attest to the certified professionals ability to mitigate the security concerns and risks
that surround application development throughout the SDLC, from the original
specification and design to implementation, maintenance and disposal
The following domains make up the CSSLP Common Body of Knowledge (CBK)
which focuses on the need for security to be built into the SDLC:
42
The CSSLP qualification is valid for three years, after which it must be renewed. It can be
renewed if the exam is re-taken or, as is more common, by acquiring and reporting continuing
professional education (CPE) credits. CSSLPs are required to earn a minimum of 15 CPEs (of
the 90 CPE certification cycle total requirements) and pay the annual maintenance fee for the
three-year certification cycle.
The CISSP, another certification programme from (ISC) with similar rules, is intended for
professionals who develop policies and procedures in information security.
https://www.isaca.org/
General Contact
Web form, phone and address
US
International
Industry (not for profit)
Protection of Information Assets and CISM is designed to cover the following areas:
43
The CISA and CISM certificates have to be maintained by the reporting of continuing
professional education (CPE) credits. CISAs and CISMs are required to earn a minimum of 20
CPEs (of the total 120 CPE certification, 3-year cycle requirements) and pay the annual
maintenance fee for the three-year certification cycle.
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/training/p63.cfm
Contact Method
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/training/p63.cfm
Email and phone
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Academic (SEI)
This course provides a detailed explanation of common programming errors in C and C++ and
describes how these errors can lead to code that is vulnerable to exploitation. The course
concentrates on security issues intrinsic to the C and C++ programming languages and
associated libraries.
Participants will acquire a working knowledge of common programming errors that lead to
software vulnerabilities, how these errors can be exploited, and effective mitigation strategies
for preventing the introduction of such errors. In particular, participants will learn how to:
44
Moreover, this course encourages programmers to adopt best security practice and develop a
security mindset that can help protect software.
http://www.foundstone.com
Contact Method
http://www.mcafee.com/us/about/contactus.aspx
Email, web form, phone and address
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Industry (McAfee)
The following subsections detail the Foundstones computer-based training courses related to
SSE.
45
Data Validation
Process Handling
Error Handling and Exception Management
Logging and Auditing
Memory Management
ORACLE COURSES
Oracle University is the premier provider for training for Oracle technologies and products. It
offers class-based, on-site, virtual and CD-ROM courses, many of which focus on
programming Java or Oracle products.
46
URL
http://education.oracle.com
Contact Method
Education Contact
Email and phone
Country of HQ location
US
Geographic Scope
International
Type
Industry (Oracle)
The following subsections describe examples of the courses offered by Oracle worldwide.
They focus on Oracle technologies and in Java programming language; some courses are
given in classes, others online.
47
PHP Foundations
MySQL Foundations
Manage Databases
Manage Tables
SQL SELECT Commands
SQL Expressions
SQL DML Commands
SQL JOINS
MySQL Database-Driven Web-Based Forms
Session Handling
48
Object-Oriented Programming
Authentication
Securing PHP and MySQL
GOOGLE GRUYERE
Google Code University provides a free lab environment called Gruyere, where students can
try to hack web applications. Students have the opportunity to do some real penetration
testing, exploiting real examples with increasing complexity. Specifically, students can learn:
How an application can be attacked using common web security vulnerabilities, like
cross-site scripting vulnerabilities (XSS) and cross-site request forgery (XSRF)
How to find, fix, and avoid these common vulnerabilities, and other bugs that have a
security impact, such as denial-of-service, information disclosure or remote code
execution.
49
2.
In this section we list European SSE initiatives. These initiatives have been categorised
according to their geographic scope and type (academic, government or industry), but the
structure of this section is:
Ungrouped Initiatives
Each of them constitutes an isolated category according to its objectives and results. NESSI,
OWASP Local Chapters, MISRA and Serenity Forum are ungrouped initiatives.
Grouped Initiatives
Each of them is grouped in the following subsections according to the objectives, results and
structure under section 1:
These initiatives could be classified with multiple tags according to their relevant or expected
results in SSE: standardisation, industry platform, vulnerability detection, vulnerability
protection, information sharing, specialised workshop, certification and training.
2.1.
NESSI is the European Technology Platform dedicated to Software and Services. The main
focus of NESSI is on strengthening Internet services through activities in research, standards
and policies, and building contributions via an industry/academia community.
NESSI participants are divided into three groups:
NESSI partners: mainly industrial but some academic profiles who coordinate the
platform and provide the financial support for NESSIs daily operations
NESSI members: industry, academia and users who represent major
stakeholders from the ICT services provider domain. A fee is not required
NESSI subscribers: who use different information channels to keep up to date with
NESSI activities.
URL
http://www.nessi-europe.com
Contact Method
NESSI Contacts
Email
Country of HQ location
Belgium
Geographic Scope
Europe
Type
Industry
Until 2010, NESSI participation was managed through NESSI Working Groups (NWGs):
50
Trust, Security and Dependability NWG has hitherto dealt with Security in SOA
projects, which could be related to SSE. Now, task forces will replace the NWGs
and probably the task forces in the security area.
NESSI Strategic Research Agenda (NESSI SRA) is going through a continuous
update process in line with the requirements of the FP7 Work Programme.
NESSI SRA Volume 3 - NESSI Roadmap plans the short-, mid- and long-term
phases in the execution of NESSI.
National and regional technology platforms are part of the NESSI network. They handle NESSI
objectives from a local point of view (see 0).
The NESSI focus from 2010 to 2015 could have some links with SSE in the following:
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
Newsletters
Research Agenda
NESSI strategic research agenda (Lastest version)
One of the Research Priorities for 2009-2010 (Volume 3.2 - Revision 2 - May 2009) is End-toend Trust, Security, Privacy and Resilience.
Working Group related to SSE
Trust, Security and Dependability NWG
This NWG reports on the state of play regarding web services trust, security and dependability
(reliability), as well as giving recommendations on future priorities, producing guidelines and
identifying best practice. Task forces in security areas are expected to replace this NWG.
http://nessiplatforms.ning.com
51
The following subsections detail the activity of each national platform that handles NESSI
objectives from a local point of view and publishes its national SRA.
NESSI-NORWAY
NESSI Norway is the Norwegian branch of the NESSI. Its main objective is to establish a
Norwegian arena for stakeholders in industry, research/academia and the public sector and to
influence the Norwegian Government's ICT research strategy.
URL
http://www.nessi-norway.no
From NESSI Norway
Web form
Contact method
From NESSI Platforms
Email
Norwegian SRA status is mature, but is revised each year.
The basis of this activity is that NESSI will take responsibility for the content and
implementation of the EU 7th Framework Programme for R&D. They invite anyone involved in
R&D activity to participate in this work.
NESSI-SLOVENIA
NESSI-Slovenia was founded in 2006. It is a forum for exchanging knowledge, developing
strategies and searching for new potential in, and the faster development of, the internationally
competitive IT and service industry. The central vision of the NESSI-Slovenia platform is to
enable new service-oriented business models.
URL
http://www.nessi-slovenia.com
Contact method
INES-SPAIN
INES - Spanish Software and Services Platform, NESSIs Spanish Platform, was founded in
2005. It is a network of scientific and technological cooperation comprising relevant technical
agents in different areas (businesses, universities, technology centres, etc.). The ultimate aim
of INES is to improve the competitiveness of the Spanish ICT industry.
URL
http://www.ines.org.es
Contact method
From INES
Email
52
INES participation is managed through several Working Groups in different sectors and
technological areas. INES issues an aligned or strategic stamp of approval to support its
members R&D projects.
The most recent version of the Spanish SRA is dated June 2010.
INES is open to any Spanish legal entity with an interest and expertise in software
technologies and services.
EETP-TURKEY
EETP - Turkish National Technology Platform for Electrics and Electronics, NESSIs Turkish
Platform, was founded in 2008. EETP aims to improve Turkeys international competitiveness,
to identify priority areas for technology development and innovation and create a Strategic
Action Plan and Roadmap.
URL
http://www.eetp-tr.org
Contact method
From EETP
Email
From NESSI Platforms
Email
IT
Security
Telecommunications
Industrial Electronics
Consumer Electronics
IIP SAAS-NETHERLANDS
IIP SaaS is the Dutch platform for Software as a Service (SaaS), NESSIs Dutch Platform,
which brings Dutch industry together to deal and work with it. IIP SaaS works closely with the
research programme Jacquard.
URL
http://www.iipsaas.nl
Contact method
From IIP-SaaS
Web form and Phone
From NESSI Platforms
Email
NESSI-BULGARIA
NESSI-Bulgaria was founded in 2005. It is a forum for exchanging knowledge, developing
strategies and searching for new potential in, and the faster development of, the internationally
53
competitive IT and service industry. The central vision of the platform is to enable new serviceoriented business models.
URL
http://www-it.fmi.uni-sofia.bg/nessibg
Contact method
Define a Bulgarian roadmap and SRA for the future evolution of the Bulgarian R&D
and innovation programme.
Support R&D activities in the area of software and services.
Provide education: new courses, MSc programmes, PhD programmes and training.
NESSI-HUNGARY
NESSI-Hungary was founded in 2007 with the purpose of evolving the direction of strategic
research and development in the field of software and services, based on a unified approach.
http://www.nessi-hungary.com
http://www.nessi.hu/
URL
GERMANY BICC-NET
BICC-NET, NESSIs German Platform, is Germanys Bavarian ICT cluster. Founded in 2007, it
wishes to selectively stimulate innovation.
BICC-NET comprises the following:
54
URL
http://www.bicc-net.de
From BICC-NET
Web form
Contact method
From NESSI Platforms
Email
BICC-NET is used to ensure the growth of ICT in Bavaria. It is driven by the official BICC
cluster office, which has been directly commissioned by the Bavarian State Ministry for
Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology.
BICC-NET will support Bavarian ICT companies innovation profiles and ongoing
developments.
NESSI-SWEDEN
NESSI Sweden was founded in 2010. The overall objective of NESSI Sweden is to promote
the development and application of service and ICT technologies in order to address future
challenges within Swedish industry and government.
URL
http://nessisweden.ning.com
Contact method
NESSI-ROMANIA
NESSI Romania was founded in 2010.
URL
http://sprers.eu/tech-platforms/ro-nessi
From NESSI Romania
Email, phone and address
Contact method
From NESSI Platforms
Email
The short-term aims of NESSI-Romania are to:
55
2.2.
The following subsections explain the initiatives of OWASP local Chapters in Europe. Their
activities are developed from a local perspective and publicised in the corresponding entry of
the OWASP Local Chapter directory.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Belgium
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
The main activities carried out by this Chapter involve organising meetings, 4 during 2010, and
on how to defend web applications from attacks.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Denmark
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
The main activities carried out by this chapter involve organising meetings, 3 during 2010, on
different information security topics related to web applications. Presentations are available on
its web page.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/France
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
The main activities carried out by this Chapter involve organising meetings and translating
OWASP documentation into French. This Chapter also provides training on OWASP projects
and resources through the programme OWASP projects and resources you can use today,
which is intended to promote OWASP projects by providing a selection of mature and
enterprise-ready projects, together with practical examples of how to use them.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Germany
Contact Method
Contact
Board members and their emails.
56
The main activities carried out by this Chapter involve organising meetings, namely the
AppSec Germany Conference, which takes place annually.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Geneva
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
The main activities carried out by this Chapter involve organising meetings related to digital
identities and authentication in web applications.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Greece
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
The Greek OWASP Working Group was established in 2005 with the aim of informing the
Greek community about, and alerting them to, the security risks in web applications. The main
reason for its creation was the ever-increasing number of security incidents on the Internet,
such as phishing incidents in Greek banks.
Today, the Greek team operates OWASP projects with Free/Open software and Greek
translations of OWASP, so as to promote the idea of OWASP locally. They issue a monthly
newsletter, maintain a mailing list for updates and manage online debates on topical security
issues.
The Greek community OWASP wants to bring together all those interested in, and concerned
about, the security of web applications. At the same time, it welcomes volunteers who are
willing to work on projects coordinated by the OWASP, using free/open source software. They
invite anyone to share their ideas, thoughts and reflections on the attacks, defence, response
methods, tools and best practice in Internet security.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Ireland-Dublin
Contact Method
Contact
Board members and their emails.
The activities of Irelands local Dublin Chapter involve organising events and conferences. It
was particularly active in 2010, with more than 10 events during the year.
57
This chapter also provides training on OWASP projects and resources through the programme
OWASP projects and resources you can use today. This aims to promote OWASP projects
by providing a selection of mature and enterprise-ready projects together with practical
examples of how to use them.
URL
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Ireland-Limerick
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Italy
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
This Chapters activities involve event organising and tools development. The Chapter tries to
arrange at least 2 conferences per annum, in the spring and autumn. Recently, they have
been working on the development of sqlmap, an automatic SQL injection tool developed in
Python.
The initiative is supported by partners as IsecLab, ClusIT and ISACA Rome.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Latvia
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
The OWASP Latvian Chapter was only recently created (in October 2007). This chapters
main activity is to organise events. However, despite having organised several conferences
during 2008, the Chapter has not shown much strong activity in the last two years.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Leeds_UK
Contact Method
Contact
Chapters Leaders and email.
This is a new and very active Chapter. It has held meetings across northern England including
in Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
58
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/London
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
OWASP Londons activities focus on preparing and organising events, conferences and
presentations. The Chapter registered high activity during 2010.
It also provides training on OWASP projects and resources through the programme OWASP
projects and resources you can use today, which aims to promote OWASP projects by
providing a selection of mature and enterprise-ready projects together with practical examples
of how to use them.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Luxembourg
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
Luxembourgs activities involve preparing and organising events and conferences such as the
Java User Group (YAJUG) or Chaos Computer Club Letzebuerg (C3L). Currently there
appears to be little activity in this group.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Norway
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
OWASP Norways activities involve preparing and organising events and conferences. This
chapter was highly active during past year, having organised 8 conferences in Norway in the
period.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Poland
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
The main activity that this chapter is to organise events. This chapter seems to be a very
active one, as they were involved in 11 conferences during 2010 and the chapters activities
appear to ber continuing into this year. The initiative is supported by ISSA.
59
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Portuguese
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
This Chapters activities involve organising conferences and publications. In the past year it
has organised one of OWASPs major events: the Ibero-American Web Application Security
Conference IBWAS2010. Refer to the Chapters web page for presentations, accepted papers
and videos of conferences and events.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Scotland
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
The main activities carried out by this Chapter, according to its web page, involve providing
responses jointly with other local British chapters to several UK Government offices. This
chapter also appears to organise annual meetings.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Slovakia
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
The main activity of this Chapter is to organise events. The Chapter appears to have
increased its activity during the past year, organising two events in the period.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Slovenia
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
This Chapters main activity is organising events. According to the information provided on its
web page, it usually organises 2 conferences per annum. It also provides slides of the
presentations on its web page.
60
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Spain
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
This Chapter carries out two main activities. On the one hand it is actively collaborating with
OWASP on a project to provide Specifications on Legal Requirements for Web Applications.
On the other, like most of the other local chapters in this section, it organises annual events
and conferences and also participates in the IBWAS2010 event in collaboration with the
Portuguese Chapter.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Sweden
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
This Chapter focuses on organising meetings and events. In the past year it has organised
four conferences, one of them in cooperation with other northern Chapters, such as the
Norwegian and Finnish.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Switzerland
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
This chapter organises meetings on a regular basis, mainly in the German-speaking part of
Switzerland. On its web page the Chapter advises French-speaking Swiss to contact
OWASPs Geneva Chapter. Their meetings and events are mainly on topics like security
testing, secure development, hacking and secure architectures. Visitors to its web page will
find slides of events and conferences.
http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Ukraine
Contact Method
Contact
Leaders name and email.
As far as one can tell from its web page, this is a recently-formed Chapter. It is currently
enlisting members. No activities or events are, or have been, planned.
61
2.3.
MISRA is a Motor Companies Consortium within the UK. Its research, research results and de
facto standards and guidelines are aimed mainly at safe, reliable software for embedded
systems in the motor industry.
In the early 1990s, the MISRA project was conceived in order to develop guidelines for the
creation of embedded software in road vehicles electronic systems. After official funding
ceased, MISRA members decided to continue working together.
MISRA is a collaboration between vehicle manufacturers, component suppliers and
engineering consultancies. It seeks to promote best practice in the development of safetyrelated electronic systems in road vehicles and other embedded systems.
Its documentation is not publicly accessible but can be bought on the consortiums web page.
URL
http://www.misra.org.uk
Contact Method
MISRA Contact
Email, phone and address
Country
UK
Geographic Scope
National
Type
Industry
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
The MISRA Bulletin Board
62
Guidelines for the Use of the C Language in Vehicle Based Software, ISBN 978-09524156-6-5, April 1998, October 2002.
Guidelines for the Use of the C Language in Critical Systems, ISBN 0 9524156 2 3
(paperback), ISBN 0 9524156 4 X (PDF), October 2004.
Guidelines for safety analysis of vehicle based programmable systems, ISBN 978-09524156-5-7 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-9524156-7-1 (PDF), November 2007.
Guidelines for the Use of the C++ Language in Critical Systems, ISBN 978-90640003-3 (paperback), ISBN 978-906400-04-0 (PDF), June 2008.
Standards
2.4.
MISRA AC GMG: Generic modelling design and style guidelines, ISBN 978-90640006-4 (PDF), May 2009.
Since the early 1990s ESA has been busy defining software quality products for its own,
internally-developed software, as well as for externally-sourced software components. The
PSS family of standards (later replaced by ECSS standards) includes a software engineering
standard and a set of guides.
URL
Contact Method
Headquaters
Geographic Scope
Type
http://www.esa.int
ESA Contact
Email, phone and address
Paris
Europe
Collaboration of Several European Countries
One of the widely-used software standards in that series, called Guide to applying the ESA
Software Engineering Standards to small software projects is available at
ftp://ftp.estec.esa.nl/pub/wm/wme/bssc/Bssc962.pdf
This standard defines a number of quality criteria for software requirements and design, which
have a direct and indirect influence on software security. For the quality criteria requirements
the following are relevant:
Are the characteristics of users and of typical usage mentioned? (No user
categories missing)
Are all the external interfaces of the software explicitly mentioned? (No interfaces
missing)
Is each requirement prioritised? (Is the meaning of the priority levels clear?)
63
RELEVANT RESULTS
Good Practice
2.5.
SERENITY FORUM
This forum has been created by Serenity project partners (a funded R&D FP6 project until
June 2009) to continue the community established during the project. Serenity day event, June
2009, was promoted by this forum and had an agenda featuring lots of of secure software
engineering topics. There appears to be little activity arising from that event.
URL
Contact Method
www.serenity-forum.com
Not available
Country of HQ location
Geographic Scope
European
Type
Academic
SERENITY Forum is charged with providing a radically new approach to Security Engineering
through a wide set of security patterns and integration schemes. It is made up of Serenity
Project Members and individuals.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
Serenity day event
64
2.6.
One European event and one online magazine were found, but they were grouped in the
Events and Periodicals section in order to maintain the established structure in section 1.
http://www.sintef.org/secse
Contact Method
http://www.sintef.org/secse
Email
Country of HQ location
Norway
Geographic Scope
European
Type
Academic (workshop)
This workshop focuses on the techniques, experiences and lessons learned from the
engineering of secure, reliable software in order to build better, more robust and more secure
systems. Even more importantly, however, these standards need to be achieved for all
software systems, not just the ones that need special protection.
The suggested topics for the next edition are:
65
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
All accepted papers will be published as ISBN proceedings by the IEEE Computer Society and
will be available online through IEEE Xplore (e.g. IEEE Availability, Reliability, and Security,
2010. ARES '10 International Conference.)
Recent Editions
SecSE2009
The 10 papers from SecSE2009 that were accepted (an acceptance ratio of 66%), were
organised in the following categories:
Education and other Vulnerabilities the papers in this section dealt with technical
countermeasures related to software development, such as static code analysis.
The aim of these papers was to educate software developers to improve security
implementation.
Secure Software Development Life Cycles and Re-use the papers in this section
dealt with methodologies and tools to improve security in the software engineering life
cycle.
Model-driven Development and Checklists the papers in this section dealt with
models related to general mechanisms for detecting code-based vulnerabilities, the
design and implementation of secure applications (based on cryptography), privacy by
design, and software inspections based on checklists.
SecSE2010
The 10 papers from SecSE2010 that were accepted (an acceptance ratio of 56%)
were classified in three main categories (different from the ones in the 2009 edition):
Agile development and hot patching the papers in this section are related to agile
development, proposing a methodology for web-app, and presenting the results of a
SOA application security assessment. Related to hot patching, one paper presented a
framework designed for these purposes.
Testing, monitoring and validation in this section the selected papers deal with
vulnerability detection and monitoring in different platforms. One of the papers is
66
SECURITY ACTS
Security Acts is a periodical magazine aimed at IT professionals who are working, or have a
professional interest, in IT security. It is published in Germany by the consultancy Daz &
Hilterscheid Unternehmensberatung GmbH. The magazine usually publishes articles related to
SSE, but it has not had a special section related to this topic. Four editions were published
from October 2009 to August 2010.
URL
www.securityacts.com
Contact Method
http://www.securityacts.com/contact.html
Email, phone and address
Country of HQ location
Germany
Geographic Scope
Europe
Type
Industry (Magazine)
Participation is open to all professionals, from the security manager to the penetration tester
and ethical hacker. They are all expected to publish their know-how and daily work
experiences in this magazine.
Anyone can subscribe to it free of charge and download an online version. It is funded by
advertisements.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
Online Magazines.
2.7.
CERTIFICATIONS
Only one European certification initiative was found, but it has been included in a Certifications
section to maintain the structure established in section 1.
67
According to this initiative, ISSECO's focus is on the production of such secure software and
its goal is to establish a secure computing environment for all. It is not focused on specific
programming languages.
Membership of ISSECO can only be by individuals, most of them either University Professors
or consultants. A condition of membership is that the applicant has no direct business interest.
URL
www.isseco.org
ISSECO Contact
Email
Contact Method
iSQI Contact
Email, phone and address
Country of HQ location
Germany
Geographic Scope
National
Type
Discussions are in progress on publishing ISSECO course material under the OWASP label.
This might prompt a change in the business case.
2.8.
ACADEMIC EDUCATION
68
The following subsections detail some qualifications and courses available from European
universities, whose descriptions and programmes were taken from the corresponding website.
www.bcu.ac.uk
This BSc teaches the ability to design, implement and evaluate identification systems, data
capture systems and communications networks and their associated security protocols within
a business environment.
The main objective of the course is for students to acquire knowledge about how to develop a
secure network and communication systems to combat fraud and malicious attacks, together
with the requirements for handling errors and misfortune.
http://www.dcu.ie
This MSc addresses issues related to the practical examination of computer crime and the
principles underlying its prevention. It adopts a holistic approach to the study of forensic
computing and provides an understanding of the legal, technical, information-management
and ethical issues that impact the discipline.
Included in the course is a final practical project, which involves developing a secure software
system prototype that solves a real-world problem. The projects typically require the
preparation of a feasibility study, followed by the creation of a project plan and the
development of a software application or piece of theoretical analysis.
http://www.softeng.ox.ac.uk
This course teaches the ability to develop systems that fulfil security goals. It shows students
how to achieve cost-effective solutions to security needs by working with well established
architectural and detailed security principles. The students must always meet requirements
with established solutions, striking a balance between security and other system requirements.
The main objectives are to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different security
design techniques and to be able to specify security solutions to meet specific design
requirements.
69
http://www.softeng.ox.ac.uk
This course deals with how to handle problems that can cause failures and security
vulnerabilities from the perspective of programming. Some of these problems include:
inadequate handling of exceptional situations, poor understanding of the details of the
programming language in use, incomplete descriptions of the interfaces between components,
and insufficient care in the treatment of concurrency and threading issues.
Course contents include:
Motivation
Explores the causes behind some well known software errors and provides examples.
Defines terms used throughout the course (e.g. robustness, correctness, defensive
programming)
Static Semantics
Introduces types; type checking for core programming languages, modules and
objects; ownership issues and generics. Also includes a discussion on units checking.
Standard type checkers will be used to demonstrate a wide variety of robustness
concerns.
Dynamic Semantics
Introduces the main concepts in modelling run-time behaviour; provides fragments of
semantic definitions, including objects. Describes "managed code" and uses relevant
software to analyse source programs. Discusses thread safety.
70
Design by Contract
Introduces notions of program correctness and refinement. Uses JML or equivalent to
demonstrate model checking of example programs.
Robustness in Context
Summarises the techniques and tools used during the course. Justifies coding standards
and security metrics in terms of what has been learnt.
http://courses.glam.ac.uk
This specialist postgraduate computing degree focuses on the technical aspects of computer
systems security and systems administration, particularly penetration testing. It provides indepth knowledge of security issues at a technical and managerial level.
The modules include:
http://uol.ohecampus.com
This MSc in Computer Security teaches different disciplines, such as cryptography, forensics,
network design and Internet programming, taking account of the legal considerations that
influence security policy.
In addition to the mandatory or core modules, students can customise their degree by
choosing two optional modules according to their individual requirements. At the end of the
course, students complete an original dissertation.
The modules of this MSc include:
Core modules
Computer structures
Professional issues in computing
Computer communications and networks
Security engineering
Computer forensics
Programming the internet
71
Elective modules
Databases
Software engineering
Management of quality assurance and software testing
Object-oriented programming in Java
Web XML applications
E-commerce
http://www.herts.ac.uk/
This MSc explores computer systems security. Advanced topics studied include cryptography,
security protocols and the relative strengths and weaknesses of programming languages and
software features. The course teaches awareness of security requirements, services, threats
and counter-measures, and develops the skills required to identify and evaluate the methods
employed by those wishing to break into insecure systems. Students are taught how to write
more secure code and also learn about network systems administration.
It includes core and optional modules. Two or more optional ones are selected by students:
Core modules
Distributed Systems Security
Network System Administration
Secure Computing Systems (MSc Project)
Secure Systems Programming
Optional modules
Advanced Database
Human Computer Interaction: Principles and Practice
Measures and Models for Software Engineering
Mobile Standards, Interfaces and Applications
Multimedia Specification, Design and Production
Software Engineering Practice and Experience
Web Services
http://www.rhul.ac.uk
72
Technical Pathway
This Pathway places considerably more emphasis on Computer and Network
Security and includes the following set of prescribed (core) modules:
o
o
o
o
Security Management
Introduction to Cryptography and Security Mechanisms
Network Security
Computer Security (Operating Systems)
Security Management
Introduction to Cryptography and Security Mechanisms
Security Technologies
Legal and Regulatory Aspects of Electronic Commerce
http://bite.ac.uk/
This MSc Security Technology focuses on topics such as security systems, security science,
cyber security and communication security addressing the problem areas of security.
The 4 modules of this MSc are:
Security Systems
73
Security Science
This module covers Fundamentals of Security Science, Artificial Intelligence,
Stream Cipher and Security Intelligence.
Cyber Security
This module covers Fundamentals of Cyber Security, Computer Forensic,
Cyber GIS and Cyber Forensic.
Communication Security
This module covers Fundamentals of Communication Security, Mobile
Communication Security, Mobile Communication Surveillance and Global
Positioning System.
http://www.telecom-bretagne.eu
This MSc studies the concept of the security of information systems as a set of methods,
techniques and tools to protect the resources of an information system to ensure service
availability, confidentiality and integrity of information systems. The Scurit des systmes
d'information" MSc provides the ability to understand, in all its dimensions, issues related to
the security of information systems.
Advanced topics studied include the following roles: security manager of information systems;
secure applications designer/evaluator; expert in information systems security.
http://wwwfr.uni.lu
This Master is divided into two stages; the first phase is compulsory and covers the
fundamentals of computer science. In the second phase, the student selects courses based on
one or more optional profiles. Profiles are similar to specialisations with the added benefit that
multiple profiles can be built up. Each profile has a set of required courses and a set of related
(optional) courses associated with it. The subjects included in the "information security" profile
are listed below.
The available profiles are:
Adaptive Computing
Communication Systems
Information Security:
o
o
o
74
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Security Protocols
Security Modelling
Management of Information Security
Cryptography in the Real World
Open Network Security
Intelligent Systems
Network Systems
Reliable Software Systems
The learning outcomes of the "information security" profile equip students to:
URL
http://www.dtu.dk
This MSc focuses on the design and use of computing components, software or hardware, to
solve technical problems in an efficient and competitive way. The course provides the ability to
model, analyse, design, implement and validate complex IT systems based on theoretically
and technologically well-founded methods, tools and techniques. The main topics studied are
computer science, computer engineering, mathematics, logic, systems engineering and project
management.
The programme covers the following subject areas:
Software Development
Safe and Secure IT Systems
Algorithms, Logic and Knowledge-Based Systems
Embedded Systems
Digital Systems
Efficient and Intelligent Software
Embedded and Distributed Systems
Software Engineering
Reliable Software Systems
IT systems increasingly shape the infrastructure of society. These must be designed from the
outset, taking account of performance, safety and security concerns. The development phase
requires state-of-the-art methods and techniques for analysing and checking software to
ensure the absence of abnormal behaviour. This study module explores methods and
techniques for the development of reliable software systems.
75
http://information.tkk.fi
This Master explores the areas of network applications, services, information security and
mobile networking. Special attention is paid to information security, which is a critical issue
when developing and deploying services on public networks.
The students acquire knowledge of the fundamental technologies and design principles of
communication networks, the Internet and mobile systems, including applications, services
and service management, in order to develop new communication network solutions, service
platforms and service architectures.
The disciplines of information security include common security mechanisms in software
systems and communications networks, together with their design principles and limitations.
These are required for threat analysis performance, security requirements specification and
the design and implementation of secure information systems.
The programme consists of six study modules:
http://nordsecmob.tkk.fi/index.html
NordSecMob - a Master's Programme in Security and Mobile Computing offered jointly by five
universities:
76
During the programme, the students study at two of the five Nordic partner universities.
Student mobility is implemented by dividing the studies of each student between the home
and host university.
The student takes courses focusing on advanced topics in a selected area of specialisation:
The NordSecMob focuses on fundamental mobile computing technologies. The technical basis
of the programme includes current and future Internet and wireless network technologies,
mobile devices and general software engineering skills. The subject areas include tools for
safe software development and formal and mathematical validation and analysis. Throughout
the programme, special attention is paid to information security.
This NordSecMob programme leads to two officially recognised MSc degrees issued by both
home and host universities.
URL
This special Master, within the Master's programme, titled Computer Science and Engineering
of TU/e, is offered by the Kerckhoffs Institute, a collaboration on computer security between
the computer science departments of three leading Dutch universities: Eindhoven University of
Technology, the University of Twente and Radboud University of Nijmegen. The programme
consists of:
Six compulsory courses (36 ECTS), in which students develop basic skills
77
Three elective courses (18 ECTS), which can be selected from a list of courses in
security offered by the Kerckhoffs Institute
36 ECTS for the other courses, which comprise both elective courses and courses
that are compulsory at the three specific universities
Masters thesis project (30 ECTS).
http://www.infsecmaster.ethz.ch/
The Information Security Masters Track is one of the specialisation tracks of the Computer
Science Master Programme at ETH Zurich. It lasts for three semesters, i.e. a year of courses
and 6 months for the Master thesis. The programme offers 15+ security-related courses
covering a number of topics, including cryptography, formal methods, system security,
wireless and wired network security, e-privacy, fault tolerance etc. After successful completion
of the programme, the student receives a Master of Science ETH in Computer Science with a
focus on Information Security.
During the course, a student is expected to collect 90 ETCS credit points (26CP Focus
Courses, 20CP Elective Courses, 8CP Multidisciplinary Courses, 4CP Foundations of
Computer Science, 2CP GESS Course (2 CP) and the 30CP Master Thesis).
Generally, all students with a Bachelor of Science degree in CS or related fields can apply to
this programme.
78
3.
In this section we provide an overview of SSE initiatives in the US. These have been
categorised according to their type (Academic or Government).
Secure Coding in C and C++ activity from the CERT Secure Coding has been included in the
international initiatives Training Courses (see section 0).
3.1.
The CERT Secure Coding Initiative is a security initiative of the Computer Emergency
Response Team (CERT) programme. This programme is part of the Software Engineering
Institute (SEI) at Canergie Mellon University (Pennsylvania, US). Some of its programmes are
funded by the US Government.
In November 1988, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) charged the
SEI with setting up a centre to coordinate communication between experts during security
emergencies and to help prevent future incidents. As part of this task, CERT developed the
Software Assurance Initiative, which includes Secure Coding Standards, Source Code
Analysis Lab, Vulnerability analysis and Function extraction for malicious code.
The SEI is a federally-funded research and development centre, conducting software
engineering research in acquisition, architecture and product lines, process improvement and
performance measurement, security, and system interoperability and dependability.
The SEI works closely with defence and government organisations, mainly the Office of the
Secretary of Defense/Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (OSD/AT&L), industry, and
academia, to continually improve software-intensive systems.
URL
http://www.cert.org/secure-coding/
Contact Method
http://www.cert.org/contact_cert/
Email, phone and address
Country
US
Geographic Scope
National
Type
Academic
79
TSP Secure
Secure Team Software Process methodology.
CERT Secure Coding wishes to influence vendors to improve the basic, as shipped, security
within their products. In order to achieve this, CERT Secure Coding works with software
developers and software development organisations to reduce vulnerabilities resulting from
coding errors (C, C++ or Java programming languages) before they are deployed. Also, CERT
analysts evaluate the root causes of vulnerabilities and establish secure coding practices.
CERT collaborates with ISO in the establishment of several standards on secure coding.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
Vulnerability Analysis Blog
Blog for security professionals and software developers
Training
Secure Coding in C and C++
Course of secure coding in C and C++ based on Addison-Wesleys material: Secure Coding
in C and C++ and The CERT C Secure Coding Standard. See section 0.
Standards for Software Developers
CERT C Secure Coding Standard, Version 2.0
CERT C++ Secure Coding Standard
CERT Oracle Secure Coding Standard for Java
Participated in ISO TR 24731-1 (see section Error! Reference source not found.)
3.2.
BUILD SECURITY IN
80
This project intends to be a site where the US Software Engineering community (software
developers and software development organisations) can find information and practical
guidance on how to produce secure and reliable software.
Information in this site is split into three main areas. Once in a specific area, users can find
links to relevant topics and, inside each, related articles, usually with a short abstract.
The three main areas are:
Best Practice. Current best thinking, available technology, and industry practice
Knowledge. Factual security-related knowledge that all engineers should be aware
of
Tools. Information about general classes of tools, with references to specific tools.
https://buildsecurityin.uscert.gov/bsi/home.html
URL
https://buildsecurityin.us-cert.gov/bsi/bsi.html
Email
Contact Method
Additional Contact
Email and phone
Country
US
Geographic Scope
National
Type
Government
The content of Build Security In is based on the principle that software security is
fundamentally a software engineering problem and must be addressed in a systematic way
throughout the software development life cycle. It contains, and is linked to, a broad range of
information from different US sources about best practice, tools, guidelines, rules, principles,
and other knowledge to help organisations build secure and reliable software.
Staff at Carnegie Mellon Universitys SEI (see section 3.1) contribute and review articles and
maintain the site. Content has also been contributed by researchers and practitioners from
Cigital, Inc. and other organisations (see Contributing Authors).
Members of the software assurance community are invited to submit articles for publication on
the Build Security In website or to review submitted articles.
RELEVANT RESULTS
The description of each content area is taken from the Build Security In website.
Articles about Best Practice
Acquisition
The objective is to raise provider awareness. The articles describe an acquisition
life-cycle framework for security activities, products, and reviews and for selected
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acquisition contexts and life-cycle phases. The authors provide additional guidance
on methods and resources for identifying and managing security risks.
Code Analysis
Presents best practice in performing code analysis to uncover errors in, and
improve the quality of, source code. Methods include manual code auditing,
walkthroughs, static analysis, dynamic analysis, metric analysis, testability
analysis, crypto analysis, random number analysis and fault injection.
Incident Management
Incident management is defined. Examples of best practice in building an incident
management capability are presented. It also takes a look at one particular
component of an incident management capability, a computer security incident
response team (CSIRT), and discusses its role in the systems development life
cycle.
Legacy Systems
Describes the kinds of security risks that can be present in legacy systems, both
in-house and commercially off-the-shelf, and offers guidance for assessing those
risks and making sound decisions about addressing them.
Measurement
Best practice is described in relation to measurements for managing the quality of
software systems during development. Several proposed measures for
characterising specific security-related features are discussed, and the current
extent of the practice of software measurement with specific attention to the use of
security-related measures is described.
Penetration Testing
The concepts and goals of traditional penetration testing are discussed and
recommendations are made on how these can be adopted to better suit the needs
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of software developers. Additionally, the present state of the available tool base is
described.
Project Management
Focuses on how security influences project management tasks and suggests
refinements to existing practices. For example, project management can affect
how well security requirements are satisfied, in terms of how the inputs from the
technical, management, and operational communities are coordinated. Planning
has to reflect the resources, effort, and risks associated with securing a new
technology, such as Web Services. Design and implementation decisions may
create new security threats, which should be represented in both project
monitoring and planning.
Requirements Engineering
Best practice for security requirements engineering is presented, including
processes that are specific to eliciting, specifying, analysing and validating security
requirements. Specific techniques that are relevant to security requirements, such
as the development of misuse/abuse cases, attack trees and specification
techniques are also discussed or referenced.
Risk Management
A framework for identifying, tracking and managing software risks is provided. Best
practices associated with software risk management are presented, together with
content that discusses understanding software risks in a business context,
identifying business and technical risks, prioritising business and technical risks,
and defining risk mitigation strategies.
Security Testing
The primary objective is to improve the understanding of some of the processes of
security testing, such as test vector generation, test code generation, results
analysis and reporting. This will help testers to improve the generation of test
vectors and increase their confidence when testing security function behaviours.
Software Assurance
A series of documents on software assurance in acquisition and outsourcing,
software assurance in development, the software assurance life cycle and
software assurance measurement and information needs.
System Strategies
System complexity is an aggregate of technology, scale, scope, operational, and
organisational issues. Business usage, the technologies applied, and the changing
operational environment raise software risks that are typically not addressed in
current practice. It discusses the effects of the changing operational environment
on the development of secure systems. Vulnerability analysis has typically
concentrated on errors in coding or in the interfaces among components; however,
system interactions can also be a seed bed for vulnerabilities. One article in this
content area includes discussions on the software assurance challenges inherent
in networked systems development and proposes a structured approach, using
scenarios, to analysing potential system stresses.
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Articles on Tools
Modelling Tools
This provides an introduction to modelling in the context of security analysis and
discusses how tools can support security analysis during development. A model is
an abstract representation of an object. The decomposition of a system might be
grouped into components and their dependencies. A model can demonstrate the
consistency of the system specifications or be a predictor of system behaviour.
The analysis of system performance in data throughput or computation efficiency,
so as to meet critical real-time performance requirements, depends on how that
aspect of system behaviour is modelled.
Knowledge Articles
Assurance Cases
This introduces the concepts and benefits of creating and maintaining assurance
cases for security. A security assurance case uses a structured set of arguments
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Attack Patterns
These articles discuss the concept of attack patterns as a mechanism for capturing
and communicating the attackers perspective. Attack patterns are descriptions of
common methods of exploiting software.
Coding Practices
Describes methods, techniques, processes, tools and runtime libraries that can
prevent or limit exploits against vulnerabilities. Each document describes the
development and technology context in which the coding practice is applied, as
well as the risk of not following the practice and the type of attacks that could
result.
Coding Rules
Coding rules are representations of knowledge gained from real-world experience
of potential vulnerabilities that exist in programming languages like C and C++.
Creating and using software with a given coding environment enables the
discovery of, and learning about, vulnerabilities that exist in this environment, how
to recognise whether they crop up in our code and how to fix them. Coding Rules
are the codification of this knowledge. They help software developers, whether
manually or in conjunction with tools, to discover, explore, remove and eventually
prevent security vulnerabilities in their code.
Guidelines
This provides information and data for educating software development
professionals on the concept, applicability and value of design guidelines. In
addition, this section collects, and makes available, a set of Design Guidelines to
assist software development professionals with identifying and removing potential
vulnerabilities in software systems.
They are building, as well as developing, more mature and security-knowledgeaware design practices for future software systems.
Lessons Learned
This describes the lessons learned as a result of actual project experience.
Lessons learned can be both positive and negative, providing both the opportunity
to learn about techniques and approaches that can be followed on future projects
and about the pitfalls to avoid.
Principles
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3.3.
SDLC Process
This discusses the application of software assurance best practice in the context of
various SDLC methodologies.
http://samate.nist.gov
Contact Method
http://samate.nist.gov
Email
Country
US
Geographic Scope
National
Type
Government
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Finally, SAMATE is also developing some specifications aimed at software assurance tool
developers, for classifying and evaluating these kinds of tools.
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
Publications
Collection of SAMATE papers, Workshops and presentations.
Specifications
These
Test Cases
3.4.
SRD database
A collection of test cases aimed at detecting code weaknesses.
CWE is an initiative supported and co-sponsored by the NCSD of the US DHS and the NIST. It
is currently maintained and led by MITRE Corporation.
The CWE is a formal list, or taxonomy, which classifies common types of software weakness.
The main aims of CWE are to:
Serve as a standard classification for software security tools dealing with this type
of software weakness.
Provide a baseline from which to help the SSE community identify, mitigate and
prevent this type of software weakness.
URL
http://cwe.mitre.org/
http://nvd.nist.gov/cwe.cfm
Contact Method
http://cwe.mitre.org/
Email
Country
US
Geographic Scope
National
Type
Government
This project uses the results of the SAMATE project to create the CWE list of weaknesses and
its associated taxonomy and classification tree (see figure below taken from NIST)
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It must also be pointed out that CWE is a community-developed, formal list of common
software weaknesses involving academia, the commercial sector and the US Government.
RELEVANT RESULTS
CWE List
CWE's definitions and descriptions support the discovery of common types of software
security flaws in code, prior to fielding. This means that both the users and developers of
software assurance tools and services can use CWE as a mechanism for describing software
security flaws.
The CWE List is offered in three different formats:
3.5.
CAPEC is an initiative co-sponsored by the NCSD of the US DHS and led by the firm Cigital.
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Secure software builders must protect themselves from relevant potential vulnerabilities. To
identify and mitigate relevant vulnerabilities in software, the development community needs to
understand the attacker's perspective and the approaches used to exploit software.
Attack patterns are descriptions of common methods for exploiting software, providing both the
attacker's perspective and guidance on ways of mitigating their effect. They derive from the
concept of design patterns applied in a destructive, rather than constructive, context and are
generated from an in-depth analysis of specific examples of real-world exploits.
This initiative aims to provide a publicly available catalogue of attack patterns, together with a
comprehensive schema and classification taxonomy. The philosophy is to evolve the
catalogue with public participation and contributions and so form a standard mechanism for
identifying, collecting, refining, and sharing attack patterns among the software community.
URL
http://capec.mitre.org
Contact Method
http://capec.mitre.org
Email
Country
US
Geographic Scope
National
Type
Government
According to this initiative, the attack patterns information when captured in such a formalised
way can bring considerable value for software security considerations through all phases of
the SDLC and other security-related activities, including:
Requirements gathering
Identification of relevant security requirements, misuse and abuse cases
Systems operation
Leverage lessons learned from security incidents into preventative guidance
RELEVANT RESULTS
Communication Media
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Newsletter
Allows receipt of information and updates in the mailbox.
Attack Patterns
CAPEC List
Is a list, created by the community, of the latest release of common attack patterns.
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API
CSS
DHS
EC
European Commission
Seventh Framework Programme for Research and
Technological Development.
FP7
Fuzzer tool
HQ
Headquarters
ICT
IT
Information Technology
Maturity Model
OWASP
SDK
SDLC
SEI
SOA
Service-Oriented Architecture
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Software Assurance
Software Engineering
SSE
W3C
Widget
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