Software Security Engineering

Book excerpt: Software Security Engineering draws extensively on the systematic approach developed for the Build Security In (BSI) Web site. Sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security Software Assurance Program, the BSI site offers a host of tools, guidelines, rules, principles, and other resources to help project managers address security issues in every phase of the software development life cycle (SDLC). The book’s expert authors, themselves frequent contributors to the BSI site, represent two well-known resources in the security world: the CERT Program at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and Cigital, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in software security. This book will help you understand why Software security is about more than just eliminating vulnerabilities and conducting penetration tests Network security mechanisms and IT infrastructure security services do not sufficiently protect application software from security risks Software security initiatives should follow a risk-management approach to identify priorities and to define what is “good enough”–understanding that software security risks will change throughout the SDLC Project managers and software engineers need to learn to think like an attacker in order to address the range of functions that software should not do, and how software can better resist, tolerate, and recover when under attack