Program Security

Chapter 3. 

Program Security

In this chapter

·       Programming errors with security implications: buffer overflows, incomplete access control

·       Malicious code: viruses, worms, Trojan horses

·       Program development controls against malicious code and vulnerabilities: software engineering principles and practices

·       Controls to protect against program flaws in execution: operating system support and administrative controls

In the first two chapters, we learned about the need for computer security and we studied encryption, a fundamental tool in implementing many kinds of security controls. In this chapter, we begin to study how to apply security in computing. We start with why we need security at the program level and how we can achieve it.

In one form or another, protecting programs is at the heart of computer security because programs constitute so much of a computing system (the operating system, device drivers, the network infrastructure, database management systems and other applications, even executable commands on web pages). For now, we call all these pieces of code "programs." So we need to ask two important questions:

oHow do we keep programs free from flaws?

oHow do we protect computing resources against programs that contain flaws?

In later chapters, we examine particular types of programsincluding operating systems, database management systems, and network implementationsand the specific kinds of security issues that are raised by the nature of their design and functionality. In this chapter, we address more general themes, most of which carry forward to these special-purpose systems. Thus, this chapter not only lays the groundwork for future chapters but also is significant on its own.

This chapter deals with the writing of programs. It defers to a later chapter what may be a much larger issue in program security: trust. The trust problem can be framed as follows: Presented with a finished program, for example, a commercial software package, how can you tell how secure it is or how to use it in its most secure way? In part the answer to these questions is independent, third -party evaluations, presented for operating systems (but applicable to other programs, as well) in Chapter 5. The reporting and fixing of discovered flaws is discussed in Chapter 11, as are liability and software warranties. For now, however, the unfortunate state of commercial software development is largely a case of trust your source, and buyer beware.