Chapter 13 – Security Engineering

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Topics covered

 Security and dependability

 Security and organizations
 Security requirements
 Secure systems design
 Security testing and assurance

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Security engineering

 Tools, techniques and methods to support the

development and maintenance of systems that can resist
malicious attacks that are intended to damage a
computer-based system or its data.
 A sub-field of the broader field of computer security.

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Security dimensions

 Confidentiality
 Information in a system may be disclosed or made accessible to
people or programs that are not authorized to have access to
that information.
 Integrity
 Information in a system may be damaged or corrupted making it
unusual or unreliable.
 Availability
 Access to a system or its data that is normally available may not
be possible.

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Security levels

 Infrastructure security, which is concerned with

maintaining the security of all systems and networks that
provide an infrastructure and a set of shared services to
the organization.
 Application security, which is concerned with the security
of individual application systems or related groups of
systems.
 Operational security, which is concerned with the secure
operation and use of the organization’s systems.

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System layers where security may be
compromised

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Application/infrastructure security

 Application security is a software engineering problem

where the system is designed to resist attacks.
 Infrastructure security is a systems management
problem where the infrastructure is configured to resist
attacks.
 The focus of this chapter is application security rather
than infrastructure security.

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System security management

 User and permission management

 Adding and removing users from the system and setting up
appropriate permissions for users
 Software deployment and maintenance
 Installing application software and middleware and configuring
these systems so that vulnerabilities are avoided.
 Attack monitoring, detection and recovery
 Monitoring the system for unauthorized access, design
strategies for resisting attacks and develop backup and recovery
strategies.

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Operational security

 Primarily a human and social issue

 Concerned with ensuring the people do not take actions
that may compromise system security
 E.g. Tell others passwords, leave computers logged on
 Users sometimes take insecure actions to make it easier
for them to do their jobs
 There is therefore a trade-off between system security
and system effectiveness.

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 Security and dependability

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Security

 The security of a system is a system property that

reflects the system’s ability to protect itself from
accidental or deliberate external attack.
 Security is essential as most systems are networked so
that external access to the system through the Internet is
possible.
 Security is an essential pre-requisite for availability,
reliability and safety.

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Fundamental security

 If a system is a networked system and is insecure then

statements about its reliability and its safety are
unreliable.
 These statements depend on the executing system and
the developed system being the same. However,
intrusion can change the executing system and/or its
data.
 Therefore, the reliability and safety assurance is no
longer valid.

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Security terminology

Term Definition
Asset Something of value which has to be protected. The asset may be the software
system itself or data used by that system.
Attack An exploitation of a system’s vulnerability. Generally, this is from outside the
system and is a deliberate attempt to cause some damage.
Control A protective measure that reduces a system’s vulnerability. Encryption is an
example of a control that reduces a vulnerability of a weak access control
system

Exposure Possible loss or harm to a computing system. This can be loss or damage to
data, or can be a loss of time and effort if recovery is necessary after a security
breach.
Threat Circumstances that have potential to cause loss or harm. You can think of these
as a system vulnerability that is subjected to an attack.
Vulnerability A weakness in a computer-based system that may be exploited to cause loss or
harm.

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Examples of security terminology (Mentcare)

Term Example
Asset The records of each patient that is receiving or has received treatment.

Exposure Potential financial loss from future patients who do not seek treatment
because they do not trust the clinic to maintain their data. Financial
loss from legal action by the sports star. Loss of reputation.
Vulnerability A weak password system which makes it easy for users to set
guessable passwords. User ids that are the same as names.
Attack An impersonation of an authorized user.
Threat An unauthorized user will gain access to the system by guessing the
credentials (login name and password) of an authorized user.
Control A password checking system that disallows user passwords that are
proper names or words that are normally included in a dictionary.

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Threat types

 Interception threats that allow an attacker to gain access

to an asset.
 A possible threat to the Mentcare system might be a situation
where an attacker gains access to the records of an individual
patient.
 Interruption threats that allow an attacker to make part of
the system unavailable.
 A possible threat might be a denial of service attack on a system
database server so that database connections become
impossible.

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Threat types

 Modification threats that allow an attacker to tamper with

a system asset.
 In the Mentcare system, a modification threat would be where an
attacker alters or destroys a patient record.
 Fabrication threats that allow an attacker to insert false
information into a system.
 This is perhaps not a credible threat in the Mentcare system but
would be a threat in a banking system, where false transactions
might be added to the system that transfer money to the
perpetrator’s bank account.

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Security assurance

 Vulnerability avoidance
 The system is designed so that vulnerabilities do not occur. For
example, if there is no external network connection then external
attack is impossible
 Attack detection and elimination
 The system is designed so that attacks on vulnerabilities are
detected and neutralised before they result in an exposure. For
example, virus checkers find and remove viruses before they
infect a system
 Exposure limitation and recovery
 The system is designed so that the adverse consequences of a
successful attack are minimised. For example, a backup policy
allows damaged information to be restored

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Security and dependability

 Security and reliability

 If a system is attacked and the system or its data are corrupted
as a consequence of that attack, then this may induce system
failures that compromise the reliability of the system.
 Security and availability
 A common attack on a web-based system is a denial of service
attack, where a web server is flooded with service requests from
a range of different sources. The aim of this attack is to make the
system unavailable.

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Security and dependability

 Security and safety

 An attack that corrupts the system or its data means that
assumptions about safety may not hold. Safety checks rely on
analysing the source code of safety critical software and assume
the executing code is a completely accurate translation of that
source code. If this is not the case, safety-related failures may
be induced and the safety case made for the software is invalid.
 Security and resilience
 Resilience is a system characteristic that reflects its ability to
resist and recover from damaging events. The most probable
damaging event on networked software systems is a cyberattack
of some kind so most of the work now done in resilience is
aimed at deterring, detecting and recovering from such attacks.

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 Security and organizations

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Security is a business issue

 Security is expensive and it is important that security

decisions are made in a cost-effective way
 There is no point in spending more than the value of an asset to
keep that asset secure.
 Organizations use a risk-based approach to support
security decision making and should have a defined
security policy based on security risk analysis
 Security risk analysis is a business rather than a
technical process

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Organizational security policies

 Security policies should set out general information

access strategies that should apply across the
organization.
 The point of security policies is to inform everyone in an
organization about security so these should not be long
and detailed technical documents.
 From a security engineering perspective, the security
policy defines, in broad terms, the security goals of the
organization.
 The security engineering process is concerned with
implementing these goals.
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Security policies

 The assets that must be protected

 It is not cost-effective to apply stringent security procedures to all
organizational assets. Many assets are not confidential and can
be made freely available.
 The level of protection that is required for different types
of asset
 For sensitive personal information, a high level of security is
required; for other information, the consequences of loss may be
minor so a lower level of security is adequate.

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Security policies

 The responsibilities of individual users, managers and

the organization
 The security policy should set out what is expected of users e.g.
strong passwords, log out of computers, office security, etc.
 Existing security procedures and technologies that
should be maintained
 For reasons of practicality and cost, it may be essential to
continue to use existing approaches to security even where
these have known limitations.

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Security risk assessment and management

 Risk assessment and management is concerned with

assessing the possible losses that might ensue from
attacks on the system and balancing these losses
against the costs of security procedures that may reduce
these losses.
 Risk management should be driven by an organisational
security policy.
 Risk management involves
 Preliminary risk assessment
 Life cycle risk assessment
 Operational risk assessment

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Preliminary risk assessment

 The aim of this initial risk assessment is to identify

generic risks that are applicable to the system and to
decide if an adequate level of security can be achieved
at a reasonable cost.
 The risk assessment should focus on the identification
and analysis of high-level risks to the system.
 The outcomes of the risk assessment process are used
to help identify security requirements.

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Design risk assessment

 This risk assessment takes place during the system

development life cycle and is informed by the technical
system design and implementation decisions.
 The results of the assessment may lead to changes to
the security requirements and the addition of new
requirements.
 Known and potential vulnerabilities are identified, and
this knowledge is used to inform decision making about
the system functionality and how it is to be implemented,
tested, and deployed.

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Operational risk assessment

 This risk assessment process focuses on the use of the

system and the possible risks that can arise from human
behavior.
 Operational risk assessment should continue after a
system has been installed to take account of how the
system is used.
 Organizational changes may mean that the system is
used in different ways from those originally planned.
These changes lead to new security requirements that
have to be implemented as the system evolves.

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 Security requirements

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Security specification

 Security specification has something in common with safety

requirements specification – in both cases, your concern is to avoid
something bad happening.
 Four major differences
 Safety problems are accidental – the software is not operating in a
hostile environment. In security, you must assume that attackers have
knowledge of system weaknesses
 When safety failures occur, you can look for the root cause or weakness
that led to the failure. When failure results from a deliberate attack, the
attacker may conceal the cause of the failure.
 Shutting down a system can avoid a safety-related failure. Causing a
shut down may be the aim of an attack.
 Safety-related events are not generated from an intelligent adversary.
An attacker can probe defenses over time to discover weaknesses.

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Types of security requirement

 Identification requirements.
 Authentication requirements.
 Authorisation requirements.
 Immunity requirements.
 Integrity requirements.
 Intrusion detection requirements.
 Non-repudiation requirements.
 Privacy requirements.
 Security auditing requirements.
 System maintenance security requirements.
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Security requirement classification

 Risk avoidance requirements set out the risks that

should be avoided by designing the system so that these
risks simply cannot arise.
 Risk detection requirements define mechanisms that
identify the risk if it arises and neutralise the risk before
losses occur.
 Risk mitigation requirements set out how the system
should be designed so that it can recover from and
restore system assets after some loss has occurred.

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The preliminary risk assessment process for
security requirements

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Security risk assessment

 Asset identification
 Identify the key system assets (or services) that have to be
protected.
 Asset value assessment
 Estimate the value of the identified assets.
 Exposure assessment
 Assess the potential losses associated with each asset.
 Threat identification
 Identify the most probable threats to the system assets

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Security risk assessment

 Attack assessment
 Decompose threats into possible attacks on the system and the
ways that these may occur.
 Control identification
 Propose the controls that may be put in place to protect an
asset.
 Feasibility assessment
 Assess the technical feasibility and cost of the controls.
 Security requirements definition
 Define system security requirements. These can be
infrastructure or application system requirements.

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Asset analysis in a preliminary risk assessment
report for the Mentcare system

Asset Value Exposure

The information system High. Required to support all High. Financial loss as clinics
clinical consultations. Potentially may have to be canceled. Costs
safety-critical. of restoring system. Possible
patient harm if treatment cannot
be prescribed.

The patient database High. Required to support all High. Financial loss as clinics
clinical consultations. Potentially may have to be canceled. Costs
safety-critical. of restoring system. Possible
patient harm if treatment cannot
be prescribed.

An individual patient record Normally low although may be Low direct losses but possible
high for specific high-profile loss of reputation.
patients.

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Threat and control analysis in a preliminary risk
assessment report

Threat Probability Control Feasibility

An unauthorized user Low Only allow system Low cost of implementation but
gains access as management from care must be taken with key
system manager and specific locations that distribution and to ensure that
makes system are physically secure. keys are available in the event
unavailable of an emergency.

An unauthorized user High Require all users to Technically feasible but high-
gains access as authenticate themselves cost solution. Possible user
system user and using a biometric resistance.
accesses confidential mechanism.
information Simple and transparent to
Log all changes to implement and also supports
patient information to recovery.
track system usage.

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Security requirements for the Mentcare system

 Patient information shall be downloaded at the start of a

clinic session to a secure area on the system client that
is used by clinical staff.
 All patient information on the system client shall be
encrypted.
 Patient information shall be uploaded to the database
after a clinic session has finished and deleted from the
client computer.
 A log on a separate computer from the database server
must be maintained of all changes made to the system
database.
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Misuse cases

 Misuse cases are instances of threats to a system

 Interception threats
 Attacker gains access to an asset
 Interruption threats
 Attacker makes part of a system unavailable
 Modification threats
 A system asset if tampered with
 Fabrication threats
 False information is added to a system

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Misuse cases

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Mentcare use case – Transfer data

Mentcare system: Transfer data

Actors Medical receptionist, Patient records system (PRS)

Description A receptionist may transfer data from the Mentcare system to a

general patient record database that is maintained by a health
authority. The information transferred may either be updated personal
information (address, phone number, etc.) or a summary of the
patient’s diagnosis and treatment.
Data Patient’s personal information, treatment summary.

Stimulus User command issued by medical receptionist.

Response Confirmation that PRS has been updated.

Comments The receptionist must have appropriate security permissions to access

the patient information and the PRS.

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Mentcare misuse case: Intercept transfer

Mentcare system: Intercept transfer (Misuse case)

Actors Medical receptionist, Patient records system (PRS), Attacker
Description A receptionist transfers data from his or her PC to the Mentcare system
on the server. An attacker intercepts the data transfer and takes a copy
of that data.
Data (assets) Patient’s personal information, treatment summary
Attacks A network monitor is added to the system and packets from the
receptionist to the server are intercepted.
A spoof server is set up between the receptionist and the database
server so that receptionist believes they are interacting with the real
system.

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Misuse case: Intercept transfer

Mentcare system: Intercept transfer (Misuse case)

Mitigations All networking equipment must be maintained in a locked
room. Engineers accessing the equipment must be accredited.
All data transfers between the client and server must be
encrypted.
Certificate-based client-server communication must be used
 
Requirements All communications between the client and the server must use
the Secure Socket Layer (SSL). The https protocol uses
certificate based authentication and encryption.

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 Secure systems design

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Secure systems design

 Security should be designed into a system – it is very

difficult to make an insecure system secure after it has
been designed or implemented
 Architectural design
 how do architectural design decisions affect the security of a
system?
 Good practice
 what is accepted good practice when designing secure
systems?

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Design compromises

 Adding security features to a system to enhance its

security affects other attributes of the system
 Performance
 Additional security checks slow down a system so its response
time or throughput may be affected
 Usability
 Security measures may require users to remember information
or require additional interactions to complete a transaction. This
makes the system less usable and can frustrate system users.

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Design risk assessment

 Risk assessment while the system is being developed

and after it has been deployed
 More information is available - system platform,
middleware and the system architecture and data
organisation.
 Vulnerabilities that arise from design choices may
therefore be identified.

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Design and risk assessment

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Protection requirements

 Protection requirements may be generated when

knowledge of information representation and system
distribution
 Separating patient and treatment information limits the
amount of information (personal patient data) that needs
to be protected
 Maintaining copies of records on a local client protects
against denial of service attacks on the server
 But these may need to be encrypted

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Design risk assessment

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Design decisions from use of COTS

 System users authenticated using a name/password

combination.
 The system architecture is client-server with clients
accessing the system through a standard web browser.
 Information is presented as an editable web form.

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Vulnerabilities associated with technology
choices

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Security requirements

 A password checker shall be made available and shall

be run daily. Weak passwords shall be reported to
system administrators.
 Access to the system shall only be allowed by approved
client computers.
 All client computers shall have a single, approved web
browser installed by system administrators.

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Architectural design

 Two fundamental issues have to be considered when

designing an architecture for security.
 Protection
• How should the system be organised so that critical assets can be
protected against external attack?
 Distribution
• How should system assets be distributed so that the effects of a
successful attack are minimized?
 These are potentially conflicting
 If assets are distributed, then they are more expensive to
protect. If assets are protected, then usability and performance
requirements may be compromised.

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Protection

 Platform-level protection
 Top-level controls on the platform on which a system runs.
 Application-level protection
 Specific protection mechanisms built into the application itself
e.g. additional password protection.
 Record-level protection
 Protection that is invoked when access to specific information is
requested
 These lead to a layered protection architecture

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A layered protection architecture

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Distribution

 Distributing assets means that attacks on one system do

not necessarily lead to complete loss of system service
 Each platform has separate protection features and may
be different from other platforms so that they do not
share a common vulnerability
 Distribution is particularly important if the risk of denial of
service attacks is high

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 Distributed
assets in an
equity
trading
system
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Design guidelines for security engineering

 Design guidelines encapsulate good practice in secure

systems design
 Design guidelines serve two purposes:
 They raise awareness of security issues in a software
engineering team. Security is considered when design decisions
are made.
 They can be used as the basis of a review checklist that is
applied during the system validation process.
 Design guidelines here are applicable during software
specification and design

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Design guidelines for secure systems
engineering

Security guidelines
Base security decisions on an explicit security policy

Avoid a single point of failure  

Fail securely  

Balance security and usability  

Log user actions  

Use redundancy and diversity to reduce risk  

Specify the format of all system inputs  

Compartmentalize your assets  

Design for deployment  

Design for recoverability  

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Design guidelines 1-3

 Base decisions on an explicit security policy

 Define a security policy for the organization that sets out the
fundamental security requirements that should apply to all
organizational systems.
 Avoid a single point of failure
 Ensure that a security failure can only result when there is more
than one failure in security procedures. For example, have
password and question-based authentication.
 Fail securely
 When systems fail, for whatever reason, ensure that sensitive
information cannot be accessed by unauthorized users even
although normal security procedures are unavailable.

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Design guidelines 4-6

 Balance security and usability

 Try to avoid security procedures that make the system difficult to
use. Sometimes you have to accept weaker security to make the
system more usable.
 Log user actions
 Maintain a log of user actions that can be analyzed to discover
who did what. If users know about such a log, they are less likely
to behave in an irresponsible way.
 Use redundancy and diversity to reduce risk
 Keep multiple copies of data and use diverse infrastructure so
that an infrastructure vulnerability cannot be the single point of
failure.

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Design guidelines 7-10

 Specify the format of all system inputs

 If input formats are known then you can check that all inputs are
within range so that unexpected inputs don’t cause problems.
 Compartmentalize your assets
 Organize the system so that assets are in separate areas and
users only have access to the information that they need rather
than all system information.
 Design for deployment
 Design the system to avoid deployment problems
 Design for recoverability
 Design the system to simplify recoverability after a successful
attack.
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Secure systems programming

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Aspects of secure systems programming

 Vulnerabilities are often language-specific.

 Array bound checking is automatic in languages like Java so this
is not a vulnerability that can be exploited in Java programs.
 However, millions of programs are written in C and C++ as these
allow for the development of more efficient software so simply
avoiding the use of these languages is not a realistic option.
 Security vulnerabilities are closely related to program
reliability.
 Programs without array bound checking can crash so actions
taken to improve program reliability can also improve system
security.

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Dependable programming guidelines

Dependable programming guidelines

1. Limit the visibility of information in a program

2. Check all inputs for validity
3. Provide a handler for all exceptions
4. Minimize the use of error-prone constructs
5. Provide restart capabilities
6. Check array bounds
7. Include timeouts when calling external components
8. Name all constants that represent real-world values

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 Security testing and assurance

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Security testing

 Testing the extent to which the system can protect itself

from external attacks.
 Problems with security testing
 Security requirements are ‘shall not’ requirements i.e. they
specify what should not happen. It is not usually possible to
define security requirements as simple constraints that can be
checked by the system.
 The people attacking a system are intelligent and look for
vulnerabilities. They can experiment to discover weaknesses
and loopholes in the system.

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Security validation

 Experience-based testing
 The system is reviewed and analysed against the types of attack
that are known to the validation team.
 Penetration testing
 A team is established whose goal is to breach the security of the
system by simulating attacks on the system.
 Tool-based analysis
 Various security tools such as password checkers are used to
analyse the system in operation.
 Formal verification
 The system is verified against a formal security specification.

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Examples of entries in a security checklist

Security checklist
1. Do all files that are created in the application have appropriate access permissions?
The wrong access permissions may lead to these files being accessed by unauthorized
users.
2. Does the system automatically terminate user sessions after a period of inactivity?
Sessions that are left active may allow unauthorized access through an unattended
computer.
3. If the system is written in a programming language without array bound checking, are
there situations where buffer overflow may be exploited? Buffer overflow may allow
attackers to send code strings to the system and then execute them.
4. If passwords are set, does the system check that passwords are ‘strong’? Strong
passwords consist of mixed letters, numbers, and punctuation, and are not normal
dictionary entries. They are more difficult to break than simple passwords.
5. Are inputs from the system’s environment always checked against an input
specification? Incorrect processing of badly formed inputs is a common cause of
security vulnerabilities.

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Key points

 Security engineering is concerned with how to develop

systems that can resist malicious attacks
 Security threats can be threats to confidentiality, integrity
or availability of a system or its data
 Security risk management is concerned with assessing
possible losses from attacks and deriving security
requirements to minimise losses
 To specify security requirements, you should identify the
assets that are to be protected and define how security
techniques and technology should be used to protect
these assets.
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Key points

 Key issues when designing a secure systems

architecture include organizing the system structure to
protect key assets and distributing the system assets to
minimize the losses from a successful attack.
 Security design guidelines sensitize system designers to
security issues that they may not have considered. They
provide a basis for creating security review checklists.
 Security validation is difficult because security
requirements state what should not happen in a system,
rather than what should. Furthermore, system attackers
are intelligent and may have more time to probe for
weaknesses than is available for security testing.
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