Lecture 2: Software Security

About

Computer security has been an increasing concern for IT professionals for a number of years, yet despite all the efforts, computer systems and networks remain highly vulnerable to attacks of different kinds. Design flaws and security bugs in the underlying software are among the main reasons for this.

This lecture addresses the following question: how to create secure software? The lecture starts with a definition of computer security and an explanation of why it is so difficult to achieve. It then introduces the main security principles (like least-privilege, or defense-in-depth) and discusses security in different phases of the software development cycle. The emphasis is put on the implementation part: most common pitfalls and security bugs are listed, followed by advice on best practice for security development, testing and deployment.

Sebastian Lopienski is CERN's deputy Computer Security Officer. He works on security strategy and policies; offers internal consultancy and audit services; develops and maintains security tools for vulnerability assessment and intrusion detection; provides training and awareness raising; and does incident investigation and response. During his work at CERN since 2001, Sebastian has had various assignments, including designing and developing software to manage and support services hosted in the CERN Computer Centre; providing Central CVS Service for software projects at CERN; and development of applications for accelerator controls in Java. He graduated from the University of Warsaw (MSc in Computer Science) in 2002, and earned an MBA degree at the Enterprise Administration Institute in Aix-en-Provence in 2010. His professional interests include software and network security, distributed systems, and Web and mobile technologies..

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