ABSTRACT

SDLC & ARCHITECTURES

Insecure software, even when executed in trusted computing environments, still represents a potential enabling factor for cybercrime and cyberterrorism scenarios. At the same time, even the most secure and bug-free software when run in untrusted execution environments, represents an important and often underestimated risk. Hence, the adoption of threat modelling techniques is to be considered fundamental in order to implement a Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) enabling the implementation of risk management best practices and the usage of well-known metrics. Other promising and interesting techniques aiming at protecting programs even if they contain vulnerabilities are still considered not mature and further research efforts needs to be spent in order to let them being effective. The efficiency of the threat modelling process is also an important factor affecting the security of developed software: all threats should be modelled, understood and properly rated as relevant (or not) considering the large degree of subjectivity involved in this process.