application software security testing

Is Software Security REALLY a Problem?

What’s the Fuss about Application Security?

Consensus Audit Guidelines (CAG)

• CAG’s Three Guiding Principles:– Defenses must address most damaging attack activities. – Defenses should be automated where possible, and

periodically or continuously measured.– Activities should produce a more consistent defense

• Twenty critical controls comprise the SANS-CAG.

Real-Time Auditing for SANS Consensus Audit Guidelines (CAG)7.) Application Software Security Control Application software that is developed in-house

must be developed in a manner to limit the possibility of vulnerabilities from programming errors that have been identified as common causes of security exposures. Third party libraries or other software that are used in the development process must be scanned to ensure they do not contain known vulnerabilities.

CWE 2009/SANS 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors • Most of these errors are not well understood

by programmers; • their avoidance is not widely taught by

computer science programs; • and their presence is frequently not tested by

organizations.

Protecting Your Web Apps: Two Big Mistakes, Input-validation and Output Filtering Code,

and 12 Practical Tips to Avoid Them

Principles of Secure Development Application Security Maturity (ASM)

Published by (IN)SECURE Magazine, Issue 21, 6/2009, p.71

Principles of Secure Development Mapped to Vulnerabilities

SafeCode - Fundamental Practices for Secure Development

• Minimize unsafe function use• Use the latest compiler toolset• Use static and dynamic analysis tools• Manual code review• Validate input and output• Use anti-cross site scripting libraries• Use canonical data formats• Avoid string concatenation for dynamic SQL• Eliminate weak cryptography• Use logging and tracing– Keep Web browsers, browser add-ons, and desktop software up

to date. Always run the latest browser version.

Recommendations

• Test in-house Applications in AIM Environment• Application Security Testing Tools:–Nessus for Web Application Testing–W3AF - Web Application Attack and Audit Frame

work• Samurai Web Testing Framework

–OWASP Project: (CAL9000, OWASP Top 10, WebGoat) –HPDevinspect, HPQAInspect, HPWebInspect

References• http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid14_gci1348908,00.

html• http://www.tenablesecurity.com/whitepapers/tenable_SANS-CAG_compliance.pdf• http://www.sans.org/cag/guidelines.php• http://cwe.mitre.org/top25/• http://www.sans.org/info/39723• http://www.securityninja.co.uk/blog/?p=132• http://www.net-security.org/dl/insecure/INSECURE-Mag-21.pdf• http://blog.tenablesecurity.com/2009/07/presentation-using-nessus-in-web-applic

ation-testing-presentation-using-nessus-in-web-application-testing.html• http://sourceforge.net/projects/w3af/files/• http://samurai.inguardians.com/• http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Project• http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_CAL9000_Project• http://irongeek.com/• http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_WebGoat_Project• https://h10078.www1.hp.com/cda/hpdc/fetchPDF.do• http://www.safecode.org/publications/SAFECode_Dev_Practices1108.pdf

Security Investment in the wrong place

The End