Software assurance (SwA) is defined as "the level of confidence that software is free from vulnerabilities, either intentionally designed into the software or accidentally inserted at any time during its lifecycle, and that the software functions in the intended manner."
Contents
- Department of Homeland Security DHS
- United States Department of Defense DoD
- Software Assurance Metrics and Tool Evaluation SAMATE project
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA
- Object Management Group OMG
- Software Assurance Forum for Excellence in Code SAFECode
- Webopedia
- Initiatives
- Why does software assurance matter
- References
The main objective of software assurance is to ensure that the processes, procedures, and products used to produce and sustain the software conform to all requirements and standards specified to govern those processes, procedures, and products. A secondary objective of software assurance is to ensure that the software-intensive systems we produce are more secure. For such software-intensive systems, a preventive dynamic and static analysis of the potential vulnerabilities is required, and holistic, system-level understanding is recommended. As stated by Gary McGraw "Design flaws account for 50% of security problems. One can't find design defects by staring at code. A higher-level understanding is required. That's why architectural risk analysis plays an essential role in any solid software security program."
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
According to the DHS, software assurance addresses:
Contributing SwA disciplines, articulated in Bodies of Knowledge and Core Competencies: Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Information Systems Security Engineering, Information Assurance, Test and Evaluation, Safety, Security, Project Management, and Software Acquisition.
Software assurance is a strategic initiative of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to promote integrity, security, and reliability in software. The SwA Program is based upon the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace - Action/Recommendation 2-14:
“DHS will facilitate a national public-private effort to promulgate best practices and methodologies that promote integrity, security, and reliability in software code development, including processes and procedures that diminish the possibilities of erroneous code, malicious code, or trap doors that could be introduced during development.” There are open-source software tools for software assurance that help identify potential security vulnerabilities.
United States Department of Defense (DoD)
According to the DoD, software assurance relates to "the level of confidence that software functions as intended and is free of vulnerabilities, either intentionally or unintentionally designed or inserted as part of the software."
Software Assurance Metrics and Tool Evaluation (SAMATE) project
According to the NIST SAMATE project, software assurance is "the planned and systematic set of activities that ensures that software processes and products conform to requirements, standards, and procedures to help achieve:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
According to NASA, software assurance is a "planned and systematic set of activities that ensures that software processes and products conform to requirements, standards, and procedures. It includes the disciplines of Quality Assurance, Quality Engineering, Verification and Validation, Nonconformance Reporting and Corrective Action, Safety Assurance, and Security Assurance and their application during a software life cycle." The NASA Software Assurance Standard also states: "The application of these disciplines during a software development life cycle is called Software Assurance."
Object Management Group (OMG)
According to the OMG, Software Assurance is “justifiable trustworthiness in meeting established business and security objectives.”
OMG's SwA Special Interest Group (SIG), works with Platform and Domain Task Forces and other software industry entities and groups external to the OMG, to coordinate the establishment of a common framework for analysis and exchange of information related to software trustworthiness by facilitating the development of a specification for a Software Assurance Framework that will:
Software Assurance Forum for Excellence in Code (SAFECode)
According to SAFECode, software assurance is “confidence that software, hardware and services are free from intentional and unintentional vulnerabilities and that the software functions as intended.”
Webopedia
According to Webopedia, Software Quality Assurance, abbreviated as SQA, and also called "software assurance", is a level of confidence that software is free from vulnerabilities, either intentionally designed into the software or inserted at any time during its lifecycle, and that the software functions in the intended manner."
As indicated in the Webopedia definition, the term "software assurance" has been used as a shorthand for Software Quality Assurance (SQA) when not necessarily considering security or trustworthiness. SQA is defined in the Handbook of Software Quality Assurance as: "the set of systematic activities providing evidence of the ability of the software process to produce a software product that is fit to use."
Initiatives
A US federally funded initiative is called Software Assurance, which is jointly funded by DHS, DOD and NIST, and runs the Build Security In (BSI) website.
Why does software assurance matter?
Many business activities and critical functions—from national defense to banking to healthcare to telecommunications to aviation to control of hazardous materials—depend on the correct, predictable operation of software. These activities could be seriously disrupted were the software-intensive systems that they rely on to fail.