Secure Software Development Life Cycle Research Articles

Automated Security Vulnerability Backlog Management

In today’s fast-paced development environments, security vulnerabilities often emerge at the same rapid rate as code updates. Security teams and developers face challenges in addressing these vulnerabilities while maintaining operational efficiency. Managing a security backlog manually can be cumbersome, slow, and prone to human error. Automating the security vulnerability backlog allows organizations to track, prioritize, and mitigate security risks more efficiently and effectively, ensuring a secure software development lifecycle (SDLC) without sacrificing agility. This white paper outlines the need for an automated security backlog, the benefits it provides, and strategies for implementing it using modern DevSecOps tools. Keywords — Automated security backlog, vulnerability management, CI/CD, DevSecOps, risk- based prioritization, SAST, DAST, software composition analysis, continuous security, vulnerability tracking, security remediation, cybersecurity automation, security risk management

Secure SDLC: Incorporating Blockchain for Enhanced Security

In the rapidly evolving landscape of software development, security has emerged as a critical concern, particularly as the frequency and sophistication of cyber threats continue to rise. The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) traditionally emphasizes security at various stages; however, the integration of cutting-edge technologies such as blockchain has the potential to revolutionize this process. This research explores the incorporation of blockchain technology into the Secure SDLC to enhance security measures throughout the software development process. Blockchain, characterized by its decentralized, transparent, and immutable nature, offers a robust framework for mitigating risks associated with software vulnerabilities, data breaches, and unauthorized access. The study delves into how blockchain can be seamlessly integrated into each phase of the SDLC—requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance. By embedding blockchain protocols within these stages, the SDLC can achieve a higher level of security assurance. For instance, during the requirements analysis and design phases, smart contracts can be utilized to enforce security policies and validate the integrity of design documents. The implementation phase can benefit from blockchain's version control capabilities, ensuring that code changes are tracked, verified, and secure. During testing and deployment, blockchain can facilitate the creation of an immutable audit trail, recording all test results, configurations, and deployments, thereby preventing tampering and ensuring transparency.

Strategy Indicators for Secure Software Development Lifecycle in Software Startups Based on Information Security Governance

The development of startup software is massive because many services have turned digital. Various applications have emerged that match their functions by taking advantage of the momentum of digital transformation. For example, applications for the Education sector, industrial sector, and economic sector. With their top priority being generating applications, the security factor becomes less of a concern. This is evidenced by the many data breaches that have caused losses to serious companies and public institutions. This is where the role of top-level management emerges in restructuring the company’s strategy, especially software startups, to support producing more secure applications. In this study, the RACI matrix is used to determine who is suitable for implementing a security strategy in information security governance within the organizational structure of the software startup. Where this study starts from stakeholder identification, top-level management roles in software startup, and activities in the secure software development lifecycle. And the results of this study are strategy indicators that are suitable for software startup.

Theory and practice in secure software development lifecycle: A comprehensive survey

Software development security refers to the practice of integrating security measures and considerations throughout the software development lifecycle to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of software systems. It involves identifying, mitigating, and eliminating security vulnerabilities and threats that could be exploited by attackers. The goal of this paper is to survey the various concepts and methodologies directed towards software security, and the identification of any missing gaps. Based on the findings, it is noted that the development of secure software requires a proactive and comprehensive approach. It begins with establishing secure design principles and incorporating security requirements from the initial stages of development. Here, secure coding practices, such as input validation, output encoding, and secure authentication and authorization mechanisms, are employed to prevent common security vulnerabilities. In addition, regular security testing, including penetration testing and vulnerability scanning, helps identify and address potential weaknesses in the software. Normally, code reviews and security audits are conducted to ensure adherence to secure coding practices and identify any security flaws. It is important that security training and awareness programs be provided to developers and other stakeholders to foster a security-conscious culture. To minimize potential vulnerabilities, secure configuration management, which involves properly configuring servers, networks, and dependencies may be utilized. On the other hand, regular updates and patching are essential to address known security vulnerabilities in software components. To guide their software development security practices, organizations may follow established security standards and frameworks such as ISO 27001 or NIST Cybersecurity Framework. By prioritizing software development security, organizations can protect sensitive data, prevent unauthorized access, and mitigate the risk of security breaches and incidents. In the long run, this helps build trust with users and stakeholders, enhances the reputation of the software, and reduces the potential impact of security incidents on the organization.

Application Security Self-Efficacy of Software Developers: A Correlational Study

Practicing the secure software development lifecycle (SSDLC) requires a team of application security experts and a proper management structure. Software developers usually lack application security expertise but are often responsible for software security when management undervalues software security, or the SSDLC is too expensive to practice. Software developers must have adequate application security self-efficacy (SE) to execute software security activities and processes effectively. To improve software developers’ SE, the factors that impact their SE must be identified. A sample of 200 software developers based in the United States was surveyed for their SE. The relationship between the factors and SE was analyzed using Spearman’s rho correlation. Application security awareness, the presence of an application security team, and education level all correlated with software developers’ SE. Security training and performing multiple application securities did not correlate with software developers’ SE. The results have practical implications for improving software security.

FACTORS AFFECTING THE ADOPTION OF SECURE SOFTWARE PRACTICES IN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES THAT BUILD SOFTWARE IN-HOUSE

Software has grown enormously in value because of its wide use for domestic, public, and economic activities. Software must be secure because exploited software vulnerabilities can negatively affect individuals’ and organizations' financial, health, and economic well-being. Various authors recommended practicing a secure software development lifecycle (SSDLC) to ensure that software is released secured. Software small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the dominant software publishers, have not widely adopted the SSDLC. This study approached the problem of software SMEs’ inadequate adoption of SSDLC from an innovation adoption perspective based on the diffusion of innovation theoretical framework (DOI). Five DOI factors, relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability, were assessed for significance to software SMEs’ intention to adopt SSDLC. A random sample of 200 participants from a population of software security decision-makers of software SMEs based in the United States that develop software in-house were surveyed via an online close-ended questionnaire. Relative advantage, compatibility, and trialability were statistically significant to SME SSDLC adoption intention. Complexity and observability were not statistically significant to SME SSDLC adoption intention. Trialability was the strongest predictor of SME SSDLC adoption intention. SME software security decision-makers may find that the results of this study help to determine the factors they should consider when deciding to introduce the SSDLC into their software development process. The result of the study has implications for practice and social change because increased SME SSDLC adoption potentially results in the development of more secure software and fewer software security incidents.

False Alarm Reduction Method for Weakness Static Analysis Using BERT Model

In the era of the fourth Industrial Revolution, software has recently been applied in many fields. As the size and complexity of software increase, security attack problems continue to arise owing to potential software defects, resulting in significant social losses. To reduce software defects, a secure software development life cycle (SDLC) should be systematically developed and managed. In particular, a software weakness analyzer that uses a static analysis tool to check software weaknesses at the time of development is a very effective tool for solving software weaknesses. However, because numerous false alarms can be reported even when they are not real weaknesses, programmers and reviewers must review them, resulting in a decrease in the productivity of development. In this study, we present a system that uses the BERT model to determine the reliability of the weakness analysis results generated by the static analysis tool and to reduce false alarms by reclassifying the derived results into a decision tree model. Thus, it is possible to maintain the advantages of static analysis tools and increase productivity by reducing the cost of program development and the review process.

SECURE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE: A CASE FOR ADOPTION IN SOFTWARE SMES

Software is widely deployed and used for managing critical daily domestic, social, and economic activities. Due to software’s economic value, software is a high-value target of malicious actors and a primary source of many information security vulnerabilities. Software must be engineered to be secure because of its value. Traditional approaches to software security treat software as an addon and have been proven inadequate at producing secure software. Practicing the secure software development lifecycle (SSDLC) is recommended in academic literature. Software SMEs must adopt and practice the SSDLC for increased security of published software. This paper explores the SSDLC and makes a case for its adoption with the goal of informing security decision-makers of Software SMEs.

Secure software development: industrial practice - a review

The current state of application assets with respect to their development, functionality, scalability, user friendliness, and compatibility with legacy systems has witnessed an unprecedented degree of positive improvements. This induced increase in productivity and value has been a product of the technological innovations within and around the software development landscape. Owing to specific software development practices including software reusability, Object Oriented Programming (OOP), encapsulation, and portability, all sectors of the economy have come to embrace software products that have helped to drive business transactions. Nonetheless, the proliferation of software which has driven up the velocity, veracity and volume of data associated with transactions has become a goldmine for grabs. Hackers and adversaries alike have thus capitalized on this development to exploit the potential threats and vulnerabilities associated with software products. Insecure software is global issue, and one that impacts individuals, organizations and governments. Data loss is both a security and privacy issue, with compliance, regulatory and legal concerns, and bad actors are relentless in their efforts to steal, deface, alter/manipulate, destroy, and compromise software systems. Organizations should therefore embrace secure code principles, threat modeling, and institute a Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDLC) practice that will aid the embedment of security into the development phase, to contain the risks, threats, and vulnerabilities that are inherent in software development. This paper demonstrates an effort to provide and arm organizations with the necessary tools, processes, and mechanisms that can be leveraged to combat cyber-threats and enforce Information Assurance (IA) within and around enterprise application assets. Beginning with an overview of the contemporary software development practices witnessed in diverse organizations, including financial, energy, aviation, commerce, nuclear, defense, and several other Critical Infrastructure (CI) organizations, the tenets of a composite, structured and robust. SSDLC has been presented to promote a defense-in-depth security for enterprise organizations.

Systematic Literature Review on Security Risks and its Practices in Secure Software Development

Security is one of the most critical aspects of software quality. Software security refers to the process of creating and developing software that assures the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of its code, data, and services. Software development organizations treat security as an afterthought issue, and as a result, they continue to face security threats. Incorporating security at any level of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) has become an urgent requirement. Several methodologies, strategies, and models have been proposed and developed to address software security, but only a few of them give reliable evidence for creating secure software applications. Software security issues, on the other hand, have not been adequately addressed, and integrating security procedures into the SDLC remains a challenge. The major purpose of this paper is to learn about software security risks and practices so that secure software development methods can be better designed. A systematic literature review (SLR) was performed to classify important studies to achieve this goal. Based on the inclusion, exclusion, and quality assessment criteria, a total of 121 studies were chosen. This study identified 145 security risks and 424 best practices that help software development organizations to manage the security in each phase of the SDLC. To pursue secure SDLC, this study prescribed different security activities, which should be followed in each phase of the SDLC. Successful integration of these activities minimizing effort, time, and budget while delivering secure software applications. The findings of this study assist software development organizations in improving the security level of their software products and also enhancing their security efficiency. This will raise the developer’s awareness of secure development practices as well.

Security Threat and Vulnerability Assessment and Measurement in Secure Software Development

Security is critical to the success of software, particularly in today's fast-paced, technology-driven environment. It ensures that data, code, and services maintain their CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability). This is only possible if security is taken into account at all stages of the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). Various approaches to software quality have been developed, such as CMMI (Capability maturity model integration). However, there exists no explicit solution for incorporating security into all phases of SDLC. One of the major causes of pervasive vulnerabilities is a failure to prioritize security. Even the most proactive companies use the “patch and penetrate” strategy, in which security is accessed once the job is completed. Increased cost, time overrun, not integrating testing and input in SDLC, usage of third-party tools and components, and lack of knowledge are all reasons for not paying attention to the security angle during the SDLC, despite the fact that secure software development is essential for business continuity and survival in today's ICT world. There is a need to implement best practices in SDLC to address security at all levels. To fill this gap, we have provided a detailed overview of secure software development practices while taking care of project costs and deadlines. We proposed a secure SDLC framework based on the identified practices, which integrates the best security practices in various SDLC phases. A mathematical model is used to validate the proposed framework. A case study and findings show that the proposed system aids in the integration of security best practices into the overall SDLC, resulting in more secure applications.

An Approach to basic GUI-enabled CI/CD pipeline with Static Analysis tool

Automation in the software delivery process is considered best practice in secure Software development life cycle(SDLC) and DevOps Deployment of software occurs multiple times in a week, day or within a span of few minutes. Manual deployment of the code and database which comprises the desired software is not only tedious but also prone to errors. The Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline ensure that the software delivery is done in an efficient and reliable way so that the software is available for use at any instant of time. In this paper, we discuss a basic approach towards the development of a customized CI/CD pipeline with static analysis tool (SAT) integration providing greater reliability to our architecture. SAT is one of the major components of SDLC which checks the codebase for static errors that helps in identifying potential bugs and vulnerabilities. This approach is vital for smaller teams in industries having less bandwidth or in long-term academic projects. We discuss the development of a customized CI/CD pipeline in detail. Finally, a ReactJS based GUI is designed to obtain the pipeline status and SAT results.

A Review and Catalog of Security Metric during the Secure Software Development Life Cycle

Background: With the advancement in the field of software development, software poses threats and risks to customers’ data and privacy. Most of these threats are persistent because security is mostly considered as a feature or a non-functional requirement, not taken into account during the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Introduction: In order to evaluate the security performance of a software system, it is necessary to integrate the security metrics during the SDLC. The appropriate security metrics adopted for each phase of SDLC aids in defining the security goals and objectives of the software as well as quantify the security in the software. Methods: This paper presents a review and catalog of security metrics that can be adopted during the distinguishable phases of SDLC, security metrics for vulnerability and risk assessment reported in the literature for secure development of software. The practices of these metrics enable software security experts to improve the security characteristics of the software being developed. The critical analysis of security metrics of each phase and their comparison are also discussed. Results: Security metrics obtained during the development processes help to improve the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of software. Hence, it is imperative to consider security during the development of the software, which can be done with the use of software security metrics. Conclusion: This paper reviews the various security metrics that are meditated in the copious phases during the progression of the SDLC in order to provide researchers and practitioners with substantial knowledge for adaptation and further security assessment.

An Automated Framework for Testing Source Code Static Analysis Tools

Automated testing frameworks are widely used for assuring quality of modern software in secure software development lifecycle. Sometimes it is needed to assure quality of specific software and, hence specific approach should be applied. In this paper, we present an approach and implementation details of automated testing framework suitable for acceptance testing of static source code analysis tools. The presented framework is used for continuous testing of static source code analyzers for C, C++ and Python programs.

Hybrid Security AssessmentMethodology forWeb Applications

This study presents a methodology to evaluate and prevent security vulnerabilities issues for web applications. The analysis process is based on the use of techniques and tools that allow to perform security assessments of white box and black box, to carry out the security validation of a web application in an agile and precise way. The objective of the methodology is to take advantage of the synergies of semi-automatic static and dynamic security analysis tools and manual checks. Each one of the phases contemplated in the methodology is supported by security analysis tools of different degrees of coverage, so that the results generated in one phase are used as feed for the following phases in order to get an optimized global security analysis result. The methodology can be used as part of other more general methodologies that do not cover how to use static and dynamic analysis tools in the implementation and testing phases of a Secure Software Development Life Cycle (SSDLC). A practical application of the methodology to analyze the security of a real web application demonstrates its effectiveness by obtaining a better optimized vulnerability detection result against the true and false positive metrics. Dynamic analysis with manual checking is used to audit the results, 24.6 per cent of security vulnerabilities reported by the static analysis has been checked and it allows to study which vulnerabilities can be directly exploited externally. This phase is very important because it permits that each reported vulnerability can be checked by a dynamic second tool to confirm whether a vulnerability is true or false positive and it allows to study which vulnerabilities can be directly exploited externally. Dynamic analysis finds six (6) additional critical vulnerabilities. Access control analysis finds other five (5) important vulnerabilities such as Insufficient Protected Passwords or Weak Password Policy and Excessive Authentication Attacks, two vulnerabilities that permit brute force attacks.

SDLC Security Framework for Software Startups

A major issue for software startup firms failing to develop strong security programs is that the perceived start-up price to hold it out. Secure software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) framework used for software developers, in saving the project cost throughout the first integration of design. As several developers advocate, software organizations usually adopt atop-down approach to implement secure SDLC methodologies. Interview was finished with developers within the software startups presently used in industry to explore real-life software security practices throughout every stage of the development lifecycle. The aim of the proposed framework is to assist developers in startups to explore real-life software security practices throughout every stage of the development lifecycle.

The Application of a New Secure Software Development Life Cycle (S-SDLC) with Agile Methodologies

The software development environment is focused on reaching functional products in the shortest period by making use of the least amount of resources possible. In this scenario, crucial elements such as software quality or software security are not considered at all, and in most cases, the high value offered to the projects is not taken into account. Nowadays, agile models are booming. They are defined by the way they achieve the interaction and integration of everyone involved in the software life cycle, the advantages of the quick reaction to change, and the implementation of artifacts or deliverables which display the level of progress reached at any time. In this context, it seems clearly necessary to define a new software development model, which prioritizes security aspects at any phase of the software life cycle and takes advantage of the benefits of the agile models. The proposed methodology shows that if security is considered from the beginning, vulnerabilities are easily detected and solved during the time planned for the project, with no extra time nor costs for the client and it increases the possibilities of reaching success in terms of not only functionality but also quality.

Importance of Hardware Systems and Circuits in Secure Software Development Life Cycle

Importance of Hardware Systems and Circuits in Secure Software Development Life Cycle

Adaption of Integrated Secure Guide for Secure Software Development Lifecycle

As interests in security increases, several software development lifecycle considering security have been proposed. Actual results of applying software development lifecycle considering security reduced threats have been reported. But to apply software development lifecycle considering security, requires expertise and experiences. In this paper a secure software development lifecycle applying integrated secure guide is proposed. Secure Guides such as Misuse Case, Security Patterns and Secure Coding are integrated in the proposed method. And then, by applying integrated Secure Guide in each software development phase, the security becomes available in every phase of software development. Since, proposed secure guide provides more security information than available secure guides, software developer can use more security information while they are developing software. As a result, it is expected that developers could consider security more easily when developing software even though developers lacks expertise in security or experience.

A Study on the Secure Software Development Life Cycle for Common Criteria (CC) Certification

Common Criteria (CC) is a global standard for the information technology security evaluation of IT products. IT products must obtain at least a certain Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) to be supplied to governmental institutions. The general software development life cycle (SDLC) does not provide guidelines for the removal of the weaknesses in the software development process for CC certification, and software applications developed with security weaknesses that have not been removed can lead to fatal situations. At present, CC provides only security certification for the target of evaluation (TOE) and does not provide guidelines regarding the secure software development life cycle (SSDLC), which considers the weaknesses in the development process. If a TOE that has been specialized for CC is developed by SSDLC, both evaluators and developers can undertake CC certification from an objective standpoint. This paper presents an SSDLC that is appropriate for CC by discerning weaknesses, by referring to MS-SDL, McGraw’s TouchPoints, and OWASP CLASP based on the weaknesses provided by CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration). The findings of this study can be used as guidelines for the development process of weakness-free software applications by developers aiming for CC certification.