A Phase-wise Review of Software Security Metrics

Abstract

Integrating security at each phase of the software Development Life cycle (SDLC) has become an urgent need. Moreover, security must not be overlooked at early phases of SDLC. This helps to minimize cost and efforts for later phase of the life cycle. In addition, software security metrics are the tools to judge level of security of software. Without the use of the metrics, no one can ensure the usefulness of any approach which claims to improve security of the software. The paper presents a phase-wise review of security metrics and the issues in their adaptation. Though there are security metrics available for each phase of the software development life cycle, their usefulness in the software industry or in research is in question without their validation. In addition, a concrete research is needed to develop security metrics at early phases of software development life cycle.