Development of Secure Software : Rationale, Standards and Practices

The society is run by software. Electronic processing of personal and financial data forms the core of nearly all societal and economic activities, and concerns every aspect of life. Software systems are used to store, transfer and process this vital data. The systems are further interfaced by other systems, forming complex networks of data stores and processing entities.This data requires protection from misuse, whether accidental or intentional. Elaborate and extensive security mechanisms are built around the protected information assets. These mechanisms cover every aspect of security, from physical surroundings and people to data classification schemes, access control, identity management, and various forms of encryption. Despite the extensive information security effort, repeated security incidents keep compromising our financial assets, intellectual property, and privacy. In addition to the direct and indirect cost, they erode the trust in the very foundation of information security: availability, integrity, and confidentiality of our data. Lawmakers at various national and international levels have reacted by creating a growing body of regulation to establish a baseline for information security. Increased awareness of information security issues has led to extend this regulation to one of the core issues in secure data processing: security of the software itself. Information security contains many aspects. It is generally classified into organizational security, infrastructure security, and application security. Within application security, the various security engineering processes and techniques utilized at development time form the discipline of software security engineering. The aim of these security activities is to address the software-induced risk toward the organization, reduce the security incidents and thereby lower the lifetime cost of the software. Software security engineering manages the software risk by implementing various security controls right into the software, and by providing security assurance for the existence of these controls by verification and validation. A software development process has typically several objectives, of which security may form only a part. When security is not expressly prioritized, the development organizations have a tendency to direct their resources to the primary requirements. While producing short-term cost and time savings, the increased software risk, induced by a lack of security and assurance engineering, will have to be mitigated by other means. In addition to increasing the lifetime cost of software, unmitigated or even unidentified risk has an increased chance of being exploited and cause other software issues. This dissertation concerns security engineering in agile software development. The aim of the research is to find ways to produce secure software through the introduction of security engineering into the agile software development processes. Security engineering processes are derived from extant literature, industry practices, and several national and international standards. The standardized requirements for software security are traced to their origins in the late 1960s, and the alignment of the software engineering and security engineering objectives followed from their original challenges to the current agile software development methods. The research provides direct solutions to the formation of security objectives in software development, and to the methods used to achieve them. It also identifies and addresses several issues and challenges found in the integration of these activities into the development processes, providing directly applicable and clearly stated solutions for practical security engineering problems. The research found the practices and principles promoted by agile and lean software development methods to be compatible with many security engineering activities. Automated, tool-based processes and the drive for efficiency and improved software quality were found to directly support the security engineering techniques and objectives. Several new ways to integrate software engineering into agile software development processes were identified. Ways to integrate security assurance into the development process were also found, in the form of security documentation, analyses, and reviews. Assurance artifacts can be used to improve software design and enhance quality assurance. In contrast, detached security engineering processes may create security assurance that serves only purposes external to the software processes. The results provide direct benefits to all software stakeholders, from the developers and customers to the end users. Security awareness is the key to more secure software. Awareness creates a demand for security, and the demand gives software developers the concrete objectives and the rationale for the security work. This also creates a demand for new security tools, processes and controls to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of software security engineering. At first, this demand is created by increased security regulation. The main pressure for change will emanate from the people and organizations utilizing the software: security is a mandatory requirement, and software must provide it. This dissertation addresses these new challenges. Software security continues to gain importance, prompting for new solutions and research.Ohjelmistot ovat keskeinen osa yhteiskuntamme perusinfrastruktuuria. Merkittävä osa sosiaalisesta ja taloudellisesta toiminnastamme perustuu tiedon sähköiseen käsittelyyn, varastointiin ja siirtoon. Näitä tehtäviä suorittamaan on kehitetty merkittävä joukko ohjelmistoja, jotka muodostavat mutkikkaita tiedon yhteiskäytön mahdollistavia verkostoja. Tiedon suojaamiseksi sen ympärille on kehitetty lukuisia suojamekanismeja, joiden tarkoituksena on estää tiedon väärinkäyttö, oli se sitten tahatonta tai tahallista. Suojausmekanismit koskevat paitsi ohjelmistoja, myös niiden käyttöympäristöjä ja käyttäjiä sekä itse käsiteltävää tietoa: näitä mekanismeja ovat esimerkiksi tietoluokittelut, tietoon pääsyn rajaaminen, käyttäjäidentiteettien hallinta sekä salaustekniikat. Suojaustoimista huolimatta tietoturvaloukkaukset vaarantavat sekä liiketoiminnan ja yhteiskunnan strategisia tietovarantoj että henkilökohtaisia tietojamme. Taloudellisten menetysten lisäksi hyökkäykset murentavat luottamusta tietoturvan kulmakiviin: tiedon luottamuksellisuuteen, luotettavuuteen ja sen saatavuuteen. Näiden tietoturvan perustusten suojaamiseksi on laadittu kasvava määrä tietoturvaa koskevia säädöksiä, jotka määrittävät tietoturvan perustason. Lisääntyneen tietoturvatietoisuuden ansiosta uusi säännöstö on ulotettu koskemaan myös turvatun tietojenkäsittelyn ydintä,ohjelmistokehitystä. Tietoturva koostuu useista osa-alueista. Näitä ovat organisaatiotason tietoturvakäytännöt, tietojenkäsittelyinfrastruktuurin tietoturva, sekä tämän tutkimuksen kannalta keskeisenä osana ohjelmistojen tietoturva. Tähän osaalueeseen sisältyvät ohjelmistojen kehittämisen aikana käytettävät tietoturvatekniikat ja -prosessit. Tarkoituksena on vähentää ohjelmistojen organisaatioille aiheuttamia riskejä, tai poistaa ne kokonaan. Ohjelmistokehityksen tietoturva pyrkii pienentämään ohjelmistojen elinkaarikustannuksia määrittämällä ja toteuttamalla tietoturvakontrolleja suoraan ohjelmistoon itseensä. Lisäksi kontrollien toimivuus ja tehokkuus osoitetaan erillisten verifiointija validointimenetelmien avulla. Tämä väitöskirjatutkimus keskittyy tietoturvatyöhön osana iteratiivista ja inkrementaalista ns. ketterää (agile) ohjelmistokehitystä. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on löytää uusia tapoja tuottaa tietoturvallisia ohjelmistoja liittämällä tietoturvatyö kiinteäksi osaksi ohjelmistokehityksen prosesseja. Tietoturvatyön prosessit on johdettu alan tieteellisestä ja teknillisestä kirjallisuudesta, ohjelmistokehitystyön vallitsevista käytännöistä sekä kansallisista ja kansainvälisistä tietoturvastandardeista. Standardoitujen tietoturvavaatimusten kehitystä on seurattu aina niiden alkuajoilta 1960-luvulta lähtien, liittäen ne ohjelmistokehityksen tavoitteiden ja haasteiden kehitykseen: nykyaikaan ja ketterien menetelmien valtakauteen saakka. Tutkimuksessa esitetään konkreettisia ratkaisuja ohjelmistokehityksen tietoturvatyön tavoitteiden asettamiseen ja niiden saavuttamiseen. Tutkimuksessa myös tunnistetaan ongelmia ja haasteita tietoturvatyön ja ohjelmistokehityksen menetelmien yhdistämisessä, joiden ratkaisemiseksi tarjotaan toimintaohjeita ja -vaihtoehtoja. Tutkimuksen perusteella iteratiivisen ja inkrementaalisen ohjelmistokehityksen käytäntöjen ja periaatteiden yhteensovittaminen tietoturvatyön toimintojen kanssa parantaa ohjelmistojen laatua ja tietoturvaa, alentaen täten kustannuksia koko ohjelmiston ylläpitoelinkaaren aikana. Ohjelmistokehitystyön automatisointi, työkaluihin pohjautuvat prosessit ja pyrkimys tehokkuuteen sekä korkeaan laatuun ovat suoraan yhtenevät tietoturvatyön menetelmien ja tavoitteiden kanssa. Tutkimuksessa tunnistettiin useita uusia tapoja yhdistää ohjelmistokehitys ja tietoturvatyö. Lisäksi on löydetty tapoja käyttää dokumentointiin, analyyseihin ja katselmointeihin perustuvaa tietoturvan todentamiseen tuotettavaa materiaalia osana ohjelmistojen suunnittelua ja laadunvarmistusta. Erillisinä nämä prosessit johtavat tilanteeseen, jossa tietoturvamateriaalia hyödynnetään pelkästään ohjelmistokehityksen ulkopuolisiin tarpeisiin. Tutkimustulokset hyödyttävät kaikkia sidosryhmiä ohjelmistojen kehittäjistä niiden tilaajiin ja loppukäyttäjiin. Ohjelmistojen tietoturvatyö perustuu tietoon ja koulutukseen. Tieto puolestaan lisää kysyntää, joka luo tietoturvatyölle konkreettiset tavoitteet ja perustelut jo ohjelmistokehitysvaiheessa. Tietoturvatyön painopiste siirtyy torjunnasta ja vahinkojen korjauksesta kohti vahinkojen rakenteellista ehkäisyä. Kysyntä luo tarpeen myös uusille työkaluille, prosesseille ja tekniikoille, joilla lisätään tietoturvatyön tehokkuutta ja vaikuttavuutta. Tällä hetkellä kysyntää luovat lähinnä lisääntyneet tietoturvaa koskevat säädökset. Pääosa muutostarpeesta syntyy kuitenkin ohjelmistojen tilaajien ja käyttäjien vaatimuksista: ohjelmistojen tietoturvakyvykkyyden taloudellinen merkitys kasvaa. Tietoturvan tärkeys tulee korostumaan entisestään, lisäten tarvetta tietoturvatyölle ja tutkimukselle myös tulevaisuudessa

What are the Actual Flaws in Important Smart Contracts (and How Can We Find Them)?

An important problem in smart contract security is understanding the likelihood and criticality of discovered, or potential, weaknesses in contracts. In this paper we provide a summary of Ethereum smart contract audits performed for 23 professional stakeholders, avoiding the common problem of reporting issues mostly prevalent in low-quality contracts. These audits were performed at a leading company in blockchain security, using both open-source and proprietary tools, as well as human code analysis performed by professional security engineers. We categorize 246 individual defects, making it possible to compare the severity and frequency of different vulnerability types, compare smart contract and non-smart contract flaws, and to estimate the efficacy of automated vulnerability detection approaches

Developmental Evaluation in Practice: Lessons from Evaluating a Market-Based Employment Initiative

Developmental evaluation (DE) has emerged as an approach that is well suited to evaluating innovative early-stage or market-based initiatives that address complex social issues. However, because DE theory and practice are still evolving, there are relatively few examples of its implementation on the ground. This paper reviews the practical experience of a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team in conducting a developmental evaluation of a Rockefeller Foundation initiative in the field of digital employment for young people, and offers observations and advice on applying developmental evaluation in practice.Through its work with The Rockefeller Foundation's team and its grantees, the M&E team drew lessons relating to context, intentional learning, tools and processes, trust and communication, and adaption associated with developmental evaluation. It was found that success depends on commissioning a highly qualified DE team with interpersonal and communication skills and, whenever possible, some sectoral knowledge. The paper also offers responses to three major criticisms frequently leveled against developmental evaluation, namely that it displaces other types of evaluations, is too focused on "soft" methods and indicators, and downplays accountability.Through its reporting of lessons learned and its response to the challenges and shortcomings of developmental evaluation, the M&E team makes the case for including developmental evaluation as a tool for the evaluation toolbox, recommending that it be employed across a wide range of geographies and sectors. With its recommendation, it calls for future undertakings to experiment with new combinations of methods within the DE framework to strengthen its causal, quantitative, and accountability dimensions

Assurance Techniques for Industrial Control Systems (ICS)

Assurance techniques generate evidence that allow us to make claims of assurance about security. For the purpose of certification to an assurance scheme, this evidence enables us to answer the question: are the implemented security controls consistent with organisational risk posture? This paper uses interviews with security practitioners to assess how ICS security assessments are conducted in practice, before introducing the five "PASIV" principles to ensure the safe use of assurance techniques. PASIV is then applied to three phases of the system development life cycle (development; procurement; operational), to determine when and when not, these assurance techniques can be used to generate evidence. Focusing then on the operational phase, this study assesses how assurances techniques generate evidence for the 35 security control families of ISO/IEC 27001:2013

Sociology’s Rhythms: Temporal Dimensions of Knowledge Production

From the temporal perspective, this article examines shifts in the productionof sociological knowledge. It identifies two kinds of rhythms of sociology: 1) that of sociological standpoints and techniques of investigation and 2) that of contemporary academic life and culture. The article begins by discussing some of the existing research strategies designed to "chase"high-speed society. Some, predominantly methodological, currents are explored and contrasted with the "slow" instruments of sociological analysis composed of different, yet complementary, modes of inquiry. Against this background, the article stresses that it is through the tension between fast and slow modes of inquiry that sociology reproduces itself. The subsequent part explores the subjective temporal experience in contemporary academia. It is argued that increasing administration and auditing of intellectual work significantly coshapes sociological knowledge production not only by requiring academics to work faster due to an increasing volume of tasks, but also by normalizing time-pressure.The article concludes by considering the problem as to whether the increasing pace of contemporary academic life has detrimental consequences for the more organic reproductive rhythms of sociology

Designing the Extended Zero Trust Maturity Model A Holistic Approach to Assessing and Improving an Organization’s Maturity Within the Technology, Processes and People Domains of Information Security

Zero Trust is an approach to security where implicit trust is removed, forcing applications, workloads, servers and users to verify themselves every time a request is made. Furthermore, Zero Trust means assuming anything can be compromised, and designing networks, identities and systems with this in mind and following the principle of least privilege. This approach to information security has been coined as the solution to the weaknesses of traditional perimeter-based information security models, and adoption is starting to increase. However, the principles of Zero Trust are only applied within the technical domain to aspects such as networks, data and identities in past research. This indicates a knowledge gap, as the principles of Zero Trust could be applied to organizational domains such as people and processes to further strengthen information security, resulting in a holistic approach. To fill this gap, we employed design science research to develop a holistic maturity model for Zero Trust maturity based on these principles: The EZTMM. We performed two systematic literature reviews on Zero Trust and Maturity Model theory respectively and collaborated closely with experts and practitioners on the operational, tactical and strategic levels of six different organizations. The resulting maturity model was anchored in prior Zero Trust and maturity model literature, as well as practitioner and expert experiences and knowledge. The EZTMM was evaluated by our respondent organizations through two rounds of interviews before being used by one respondent organization to perform a maturity assessment of their own organization as a part of our case study evaluation. Each interview round resulted in ample feedback and learning, while the case study allowed us to evaluate and improve on the model in a real-world setting. Our contribution is twofold: A fully functional, holistic Zero Trust maturity model with an accompanying maturity assessment spreadsheet (the artifact), and our reflections and suggestions regarding further development of the EZTMM and research on the holistic application of Zero Trust principles for improved information security

Designing the Extended Zero Trust Maturity Model A Holistic Approach to Assessing and Improving an Organization’s Maturity Within the Technology, Processes and People Domains of Information Security

Zero Trust is an approach to security where implicit trust is removed, forcing applications, workloads, servers and users to verify themselves every time a request is made. Furthermore, Zero Trust means assuming anything can be compromised, and designing networks, identities and systems with this in mind and following the principle of least privilege. This approach to information security has been coined as the solution to the weaknesses of traditional perimeter-based information security models, and adoption is starting to increase. However, the principles of Zero Trust are only applied within the technical domain to aspects such as networks, data and identities in past research. This indicates a knowledge gap, as the principles of Zero Trust could be applied to organizational domains such as people and processes to further strengthen information security, resulting in a holistic approach. To fill this gap, we employed design science research to develop a holistic maturity model for Zero Trust maturity based on these principles: The EZTMM. We performed two systematic literature reviews on Zero Trust and Maturity Model theory respectively and collaborated closely with experts and practitioners on the operational, tactical and strategic levels of six different organizations. The resulting maturity model was anchored in prior Zero Trust and maturity model literature, as well as practitioner and expert experiences and knowledge. The EZTMM was evaluated by our respondent organizations through two rounds of interviews before being used by one respondent organization to perform a maturity assessment of their own organization as a part of our case study evaluation. Each interview round resulted in ample feedback and learning, while the case study allowed us to evaluate and improve on the model in a real-world setting. Our contribution is twofold: A fully functional, holistic Zero Trust maturity model with an accompanying maturity assessment spreadsheet (the artifact), and our reflections and suggestions regarding further development of the EZTMM and research on the holistic application of Zero Trust principles for improved information security

PRECEPT:a framework for ethical digital forensics investigations

Purpose: Cyber-enabled crimes are on the increase, and law enforcement has had to expand many of their detecting activities into the digital domain. As such, the field of digital forensics has become far more sophisticated over the years and is now able to uncover even more evidence that can be used to support prosecution of cyber criminals in a court of law. Governments, too, have embraced the ability to track suspicious individuals in the online world. Forensics investigators are driven to gather data exhaustively, being under pressure to provide law enforcement with sufficient evidence to secure a conviction. Yet, there are concerns about the ethics and justice of untrammeled investigations on a number of levels. On an organizational level, unconstrained investigations could interfere with, and damage, the organization’s right to control the disclosure of their intellectual capital. On an individual level, those being investigated could easily have their legal privacy rights violated by forensics investigations. On a societal level, there might be a sense of injustice at the perceived inequality of current practice in this domain. This paper argues the need for a practical, ethically-grounded approach to digital forensic investigations, one that acknowledges and respects the privacy rights of individuals and the intellectual capital disclosure rights of organisations, as well as acknowledging the needs of law enforcement. We derive a set of ethical guidelines, then map these onto a forensics investigation framework. We subjected the framework to expert review in two stages, refining the framework after each stage. We conclude by proposing the refined ethically-grounded digital forensics investigation framework. Our treatise is primarily UK based, but the concepts presented here have international relevance and applicability.Design methodology: In this paper, the lens of justice theory is used to explore the tension that exists between the needs of digital forensic investigations into cybercrimes on the one hand, and, on the other, individuals’ rights to privacy and organizations’ rights to control intellectual capital disclosure.Findings: The investigation revealed a potential inequality between the practices of digital forensics investigators and the rights of other stakeholders. That being so, the need for a more ethically-informed approach to digital forensics investigations, as a remedy, is highlighted, and a framework proposed to provide this.Practical Implications: Our proposed ethically-informed framework for guiding digital forensics investigations suggest a way of re-establishing the equality of the stakeholders in this arena, and ensuring that the potential for a sense of injustice is reduced.Originality/value: Justice theory is used to highlight the difficulties in squaring the circle between the rights and expectations of all stakeholders in the digital forensics arena. The outcome is the forensics investigation guideline, PRECEpt: Privacy-Respecting EthiCal framEwork, which provides the basis for a re-aligning of the balance between the requirements and expectations of digital forensic investigators on the one hand, and individual and organizational expectations and rights, on the other

Security in agile software development: A practitioner survey

Context: Software security engineering provides the means to define, implement and verify security in software products. Software security engineering is performed by following a software security development life cycle model or a security capability maturity model. However, agile software development methods and processes, dominant in the software industry, are viewed to be in conflict with these security practices and the security requirements. Objective: Empirically verify the use and impact of software security engineering activities in the context of agile software development, as practiced by software developer professionals. Method: A survey (N=61) was performed among software practitioners in Finland regarding their use of 40 common security engineering practices and their perceived security impact, in conjunction with the use of 16 agile software development items and activities. Results: The use of agile items and activities had a measurable effect on the selection of security engineering practices. Perceived impact of the security practices was lower than the rate of use would imply: This was taken to indicate a selection bias, caused by e.g. developers’ awareness of only certain security engineering practices, or by difficulties in applying the security engineering practices into an iterative software development workflow. Security practices deemed to have most impact were proactive and took place in the early phases of software development. Conclusion: Systematic use of agile practices conformed, and was observed to take place in conjunction with the use of security practices. Security activities were most common in the requirement and implementation phases. In general, the activities taking place early in the life cycle were also considered most impactful. A discrepancy between the level of use and the perceived security impact of many security activities was observed. This prompts research and methodological development for better integration of security engineering activities into software development processes, methods, and tools.</p