Integrating Security in Software Engineering Process: The CSEP Methodology

Abstract: In today’s organizations, a vast amount of existing software systems is insecure, which results in compromised valuable assets and has negative consequences on the organizations. Throughout the years, many attempts have been made to build secure software systems, but the solutions proposed were limited to a few add-on fixes made after implementation and installation of the system.The contribution of the research in this thesis is a software security engineering methodology, called Controlled Security Engineering Process, which provides support to developers when developing more secure software systems by integrating software lifecycle and security lifecycle, and enhancing the control in the engineering process. The proposed methodology implements security in every phase of general software system engineering, i.e., requirement, design, implementation, and testing, as well as operation and maintenance to certify that software systems are built with security in mind.The Controlled Security Engineering Process methodology addresses security problems in the development lifecycle. Construction of a secure software system involves specific steps and activities, which include security requirements specifications of system behavior, secure software design, an analysis of the design, implementation, with secure coding and integration, and operating and maintenance procedures.The methodology incorporates software security patterns and control of the engineering process. The software security patterns can be used as security controls and information sources to demonstrate how a specific security task should be performed or a specific security problem solved. Many patterns can be implemented in an automated way, which can facilitate the work of software engineers.The control of the engineering process provides visibility over the development process. The control assures that authorised developers access legitimate and necessary information and projects’ documents by using authentication, and authorization.To support implementation of automated patterns and provide control over the engineering process, a design of a multi-agent system is provided. The multi-agent system supports implementation of patterns and extracting security information, and provides traceability in the engineering process. The security information is requirements, threats and security mechanisms that are provided by matching project documents, and traceability is achieved by monitoring and logging services.The Controlled Security Engineering Process methodology has been evaluated through interviews with developers, security professionals, and decision makers in different types of organizations but also through a case study which was carried out in an organization.