[SC-L] (fwd) informIT: A Software Security Framework

[Kenneth Van Wyk]

Greetings SC-L,

I thought I'd chime in on this, as it very closely relates to my  
current book project.

On Oct 15, 2008, at 8:31 AM, Gary McGraw (via Kenneth Van Wyk) wrote:
> Brian Chess and I have been working hard on a software security  
> framework that we are using in a scientific study of many of the top  
> software security initiatives.

Great work, guys.  In some areas, I think it's probably overly  
simplistic, as some of the practices span more than one domain.   
(Notably, penetration testing can and should be part of a security  
testing regimen as well as a deployment testing regimen, IMHO.)  But  
it's a great starting point for going out and gathering real world  
data on what's being done in the field.  More importantly, it's useful  
at defining what practices should be assessed for a maturity model.

>  Our plan of action is to interview the people running the top ten  
> large-scale software security initiatives over the next few weeks  
> and then build a maturity model with the resulting data.


Our discipline stands to gain significantly from having a maturity  
model in place, if for no other reason than to help dev organizations  
set goals and objectives in their software security efforts.

Pravir et al at OWASP have done a great job at getting one started  
over there.  I also love the idea of using real world data as an  
initial set of measurements for each maturity level, especially for  
early version(s) of a maturity model.  I think that goes a long way to  
helping development organizations realistically know what to aspire  
to--and how to get there--for each maturity level.

In time, however, I'd sure like to see the maturity model advance  
beyond that and set the bars higher than "just" what's currently being  
done in practice, and define what *should* be done.  That said,  
starting with a solid framework of practices to measure for each  
maturity level is the right way to do things.

IMHO, it'll probably be a few years before these efforts bear  
significant fruit in terms of advancing what is being practiced in the  
field, but we've got to start somewhere.  Kudos.

Cheers,

Ken

-----
Kenneth R. van Wyk
KRvW Associates, LLC
http://www.KRvW.com





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