A reuse-based approach to determining security requirements

2010

Integration of security into the early stages of the system development is necessary to build secure systems. However, in the majority of software projects security is dealt with when the system has already been designed and put into operation. This paper will propose an approach called SREP (Security Requirements Engineering Process) for the development of secure software. We will present an iterative and incremental micro-process for the security requirements analysis that is repeatedly performed at each phase. It integrates the Common Criteria into the software lifecycle model as well as it is based on the reuse of security requirements, by providing a security resources repository. In brief, we will present an approach which deals with the security requirements at the early stages of software development in a systematic and intuitive way, and which also conforms to ISO/IEC 17799:2005.

2004

Abstract Unlike typical functional requirements, security requirements can potentially be highly reusable, especially if specified as instances of reusable templates. In this column, I will discuss the concepts underlying security engineering including its quality subfactors. I will then address the issue of security requirements and how they differ from the architectural mechanisms that will fulfill them.

Computer Standards & Interfaces, 2007

In order to develop security critical Information Systems, specifying security quality requirements is vitally important, although it is a very difficult task. Fortunately, there are several security standards, like the Common Criteria (ISO/IEC 15408), which help us handle security requirements. This article will present a Common Criteria centred and reuse-based process that deals with security requirements at the early stages of software development in a systematic and intuitive way, by providing a security resources repository as well as integrating the Common Criteria into the software lifecycle, so that it unifies the concepts of requirements engineering and security engineering.

Nowadays, security solutions are mainly focused on providing security defences, instead of solving one of the main reasons for security problems that refers to an appropriate Information Systems (IS) design. In this paper a proposal for establishing security requirements for the development of secure IS is presented. Our approach is an asset-based and risk-driven method, which is based on the reuse of security requirements, by providing a security resources repository, together with the integration of the Common Criteria into traditional software lifecycle model, so that it conforms to ISO/IEC 15408. Starting from the concept of iterative software construction, we will propose a micro-process for the security requirements analysis, that is repeatedly performed at each level of abstraction throughout the incremental development. In brief, we will present an approach which deals with the security requirements at the first stages of software development in a systematic and intuitive way, and which conforms to ISO/IEC 17799:2005.

Requirements Engineering, 2015

Security is a concern that must be taken into consideration starting from the early stages of system development. Over the last two decades, researchers and engineers have developed a considerable number of methods for security requirements engineering. Some of them rely on the (re) use of security knowledge. Despite some existing surveys about security requirements engineering, there is not yet any reference for researchers and practitioners that presents in a systematic way the existing proposals, techniques, and tools related to security knowledge reuse in security requirements engineering. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap by looking into drawing a picture of the literature on knowledge and reuse in security requirements engineering. The questions we address are related to methods, techniques, modeling frameworks, and tools for and by reuse in security requirements engineering. We address these questions through a systematic mapping study. The mapping study was a literature review conducted with the goal of identifying, analyzing and categorizing state of the art research on our topic. This mapping study analyzes more than thirty approaches, covering twenty years of research in security requirements engineering. The contributions can be summarized as follows: (i) a framework was defined for analyzing and comparing the different proposals as well as categorizing future contributions related to knowledge reuse and security requirements engineering; (ii) the different forms of knowledge representation and reuse were identified; and (iii) previous surveys were updated. We conclude that most methods should introduce more reusable knowledge to manage security requirements.

Proceedings of the IEEE SoutheastCon 2006

The Common Criteria is often too confusing and technical for non-security specialists to understand and therefore properly use. At the same time, it is essential that security critical IT products under development be validated according to such standards not after but rather during the software engineering process. To help address these issues, this paper presents an approach to eliciting security requirements for IT systems with use cases using Common Criteria methodologies. The approach involves using actor profiles to derive threats, mapping derived threats to security objectives, and mapping objectives to security requirements using a CC Toolbox data set. Our aim is to ensure that security issues are considered early during requirements engineering while making the Common Criteria more readily available to end-users in an understandable context. Violet, an open source UML diagram modeling tool, has been extended to implement the approach from a use case textual description perspective.

2010

A reoccurring problem in software engineering constitutes ensuring sufficient completeness of requirements specifications with economically justifiable efforts. Formulating precise quality requirements and especially security requirements is elaborate as they depend on many stakeholders and technological aspects that are often unclear in early project phases. Threats that may have a severe impact on the software product are sometimes not even known. One approach to tackle this situation is reusing quality requirements, because they are to a high degree similar in different software products. The effect can be higher quality while at the same time saving time and budget.

2005

Security requirements, such as authentication, confidentiality, authorization, availability, integrity and privacy, are becoming extremely common in software development processes. However, in practical terms, it has been proved that only rarely the developed software fulfils the related security requirements. The reason for this is twofold. On one hand software developers are not security experts and thus they are not competent in selecting and applying the appropriate security countermeasures. On the other hand, many security requirements are intrinsically difficult to deal with. This paper aims to address both of the aforementioned issues and to introduce potential solutions. It starts by analysing the major security requirements, and goes on to explore how they can be mapped into concrete security solutions or/and mechanisms. Then, it examines how the fulfilment of security requirements influences the choice of development methodologies and paradigms (with the emphasis being on the design phase), so that the requirements are effectively satisfied. The discussion covers object-oriented and aspect-oriented programming, the Rational Unified Process, UML and UMLsec, as well as security patterns, with regard to the ways they can support the use of security solutions or/and mechanisms.