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HOME >> OPINIONS

Guest View: The Software Industry Is Too Reactive

By Djenana Campara

March 1, 2005 — (Page 1 of 4)
A quick glance at the software news lately should make you wonder why software vendors can’t develop secure software code. CERT has stated that more than 90 percent of software security vulnerabilities are caused by known software defect types, and most software vulnerabilities arise from common causes: The top 10 causes account for about 75 percent of all vulnerabilities.

The software industry needs to be more proactive. The numerous patches Microsoft must roll out create a headache for IT managers everywhere as they try to adhere to compliance deadlines. While worms and viruses disrupt business operations, current software patching solutions struggle to keep up with the attacks. In order to achieve a breakthrough in this arms race, the software industry should focus more on the root causes of insecure software by making their software source code resilient to these attacks in the first place.

The challenge for software vendors is that the pressure to write more secure software conflicts with the pressure to reduce operational costs. There is an expectation that any new development strategies shall be applicable across geographically distributed teams, work can and should be offshored when appropriate, and commercial off-the-shelf components can be embraced.

The software industry is on the verge of a new era where cost control is paramount and high levels of both security and quality become a “standard feature” of any commercial software. To be successful in the new era, software organizations need to understand that development processes are the key to any software security strategy.

Latest Quality Imperative
The fact is that all software has bugs, and unfortunately, a surprising number of these bugs have security implications. In addition, as new attacks are being invented, software behavior that could have been considered correct when a piece of software was written may have unintended effects when deliberately exploited. Since hackers are trying to break into a system at every level of the application stack, heap or registry, it’s critical to understand the security implications of programming decisions in order to keep software secure.

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