63900833
submission
heidibrayer writes:
In today’s systems it’s very hard to know where systems end and software begins. Software performs an integrating function in many systems, often serving as the glue interconnecting other system elements. We also find that many of the problems in software systems have their roots in systems engineering, which is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles. For that reason, staff at the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI) often conduct research in the systems engineering realm. Process frameworks, architecture development and evaluation methods, and metrics developed for software are routinely adapted and applied to systems. Better systems engineering supports better software development, and both support better acquisition project performance. This blog post, the latest in a series on this research, analyzes project performance based on systems engineering activities in the defense and non-defense industries.
63869473
submission
heidibrayer writes:
According to a 2013 report examining 25 years of vulnerabilities (from 1998 to 2012), buffer overflow causes 14 percent of software security vulnerabilities and 35 percent of critical vulnerabilities, making it the leading cause of software security vulnerabilities overall. As of July 2014, the TIOBE index indicates that the C programming language, which is the language most commonly associated with buffer overflows, is the most popular language with 17.1 percent of the market. Embedded systems, network stacks, networked applications, and high-performance computing rely heavily upon C. Embedded systems can be especially vulnerable to buffer overflows because many of them lack hardware memory management units. This blog post describes my research on the Secure Coding Initiative in the CERT Division of the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute to create automated buffer overflow prevention.
63341863
submission
heidibrayer writes:
Organizations are continually fending off cyberattacks in one form or another. The 2014 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, which included contributions from SEI researchers, tagged 2013 as "the year of the retailer breach." According to the report, 2013 also witnessed “a transition from geopolitical attacks to large-scale attacks on payment card systems.” To illustrate the trend, the report outlines a 12-month chronology of attacks, including a January “watering hole” attack on the Council on Foreign Relations website followed in February by targeted cyber-espionage attacks against The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The well-documented Target breach brought 2013 to a close with the theft of more than 40 million debit and credit card numbers. This blog post highlights a recent research effort to create a taxonomy that provides organizations a common language and set of terminology they can use to discuss, document, and mitigate operational cyber security risks.
63241207
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63069865
submission
heidibrayer writes:
The role of software within systems has fundamentally changed over the past 50 years. Software’s role has changed both on mission-critical DoD systems, such as fighter aircraft and surveillance equipment, and on commercial products, such as telephones and cars. Software has become not only the brain of most systems, but the backbone of their functionality. Acquisition processes must acknowledge this new reality and adapt. This blog posting, the second in a series about the relationship of software engineering (SwE) and systems engineering (SysE), shows how software technologies have come to dominate what formerly were hardware-based systems. This posting describes a case study: the story of software on satellites, whose lessons can be applied to many other kinds of software-reliant systems.
62695443
submission
heidibrayer writes:
Many warfighters and first responders operate at what we call “the tactical edge,” where users are constrained by limited communication connectivity, storage availability, processing power, and battery life. In these environments, onboard sensors are used to capture data on behalf of mobile applications to perform tasks such as face recognition, speech recognition, natural language translation, and situational awareness. These applications then rely on network interfaces to send the data to nearby servers or the cloud if local processing resources are inadequate. While software developers have traditionally used native mobile technologies to develop these applications, the approach has some drawbacks, such as limited portability. In contrast, HTML5 has been touted for its portability across mobile device platforms, as well an ability to access functionality without having to download and install applications. This blog post describes research aimed at evaluating the feasibility of using HTML5 to develop applications that can meet tactical edge requirements.
62313873
submission
heidibrayer writes:
In earlier posts on big data, I have written about how long-held design approaches for software systems simply don’t work as we build larger, scalable big data systems. Examples of design factors that must be addressed for success at scale include the need to handle the ever-present failures that occur at scale, assure the necessary levels of availability and responsiveness, and devise optimizations that drive down costs. Of course, the required application functionality and engineering constraints, such as schedule and budgets, directly impact the manner in which these factors manifest themselves in any specific big data system. In this post, the latest in my ongoing series on big data, I step back from specifics and describe four general principles that hold for any scalable, big data system. These principles can help architects continually validate major design decisions across development iterations, and hence provide a guide through the complex collection of design trade-offs all big data systems require.
61681577
submission
heidibrayer writes:
In the first half of this year, the SEI blog has experienced unprecedented growth, with visitors in record numbers learning more about our work in secure coding for Android, malware analysis, Heartbleed, and V Models for Testing. In the first six months of 2014 (through June 20), the SEI blog has logged 60,240 visits, which is nearly comparable with the entire 2013 yearly total of 66,757 visits. As we reach the mid-year point, this blog posting takes a look back at our most popular areas of work (at least according to you, our readers) and highlights our most popular blog posts for the first half of 2014, as well as links to additional related resources that readers might find of interest.
61466511
submission
heidibrayer writes:
This blog post, the fifth in a series on Agile from Suzanne Miller, introduces a method to help organizations understand which Agile practices are already in use to formulate a more effective adoption strategy.
61235149
submission
heidibrayer writes:
Introducing new software languages, tools, and methods in industrial and production environments incurs a number of challenges. Among other necessary changes, practices must be updated, and engineers must learn new methods and tools. These updates incur additional costs, so transitioning to a new technology must be carefully evaluated and discussed. Also, the impact and associated costs for introducing a new technology vary significantly by type of project, team size, engineers’ backgrounds, and other factors, so that it is hard to estimate the real acquisition costs. A previous post in our ongoing series on the Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) described the use of AADL in research projects (such as System Architectural Virtual Integration (SAVI)) in which experienced researchers explored the language capabilities to capture and analyze safety-critical systems from different perspectives. These successful projects have demonstrated the accuracy of AADL as a modeling notation. This blog post presents research conducted independently of the SEI that aims to evaluate the safety concerns of several unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems using AADL and the SEI safety analysis tools implemented in OSATE.
61009595
submission
heidibrayer writes:
The Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) service went online in April 2012, giving emergency management agencies such as the National Weather Service or a city’s hazardous materials team a way to send messages to mobile phone users located in a geographic area in the event of an emergency. Since the launch of the WEA service, the newest addition to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS),“trust” has emerged as a key issue for all involved. Alert originators at emergency management agencies must trust WEA to deliver alerts to the public in an accurate and timely manner. The public must also trust the WEA service before it will act on the alerts. Managing trust in WEA is a responsibility shared among many stakeholders who are engaged with WEA. This blog post, the first in a series, highlights recent research aimed at enhancing both the trust of alert originators in the WEA service and the public’s trust in the alerts it receives.
60755855
submission
heidibrayer writes:
To maintain a competitive edge, software organizations should be early adopters of innovation. To achieve this edge, organizations from Flickr and IBM to small tech startups are increasingly adopting an environment of deep collaboration between development and operations (DevOps) teams and technologies, which historically have been two disjointed groups responsible for information technology development. “The value of DevOps can be illustrated as an innovation and delivery lifecycle, with a continuous feedback loop to learn and respond to customer needs,” Ashok Reddy writes in the technical white paper, DevOps: The IBM approach. Beyond innovation and delivery, DevOps provides a means for automating repetitive tasks within the software development lifecycle (SDLC), such as software builds, testing, and deployments, allowing them to occur more naturally and frequently throughout the SDLC. This blog post, the second in our series, presents a generalized model for automated DevOps and describes the significant potential advantages for a modern software development team.
60239015
submission
heidibrayer writes:
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently reported that acquisition program costs typically run 26 percent over budget, with development costs exceeding initial estimates by 40 percent. Moreover, many programs fail to deliver capabilities when promised, experiencing a 21-month delay on average. The report attributes the “optimistic assumptions about system requirements, technology, and design maturity [that] play a large part in these failures” to a lack of disciplined systems engineering analysis early in the program. What acquisition managers do not always realize is the importance of focusing on software engineering during the early systems engineering effort. Improving on this collaboration is difficult partly because both disciplines appear in a variety of roles and practices. This post, the first in a series, addresses the interaction between systems and software engineering by identifying the similarities and differences between the two disciplines and describing the benefits both could realize through a more collaborative approach.
59716891
submission
heidibrayer writes:
Software developers produce more than 100 billion lines of code for commercial systems each year. Even with automated testing tools, errors still occur at a rate of one error for every 10,000 lines of code. While many coding standards address code style issues (i.e., style guides), CERT secure coding standards focus on identifying unsafe, unreliable, and insecure coding practices, such as those that resulted in the Heartbleed vulnerability. For more than 10 years, the CERT Secure Coding Initiative at the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institutehas been working to develop guidance—most recently, The CERT C Secure Coding Standard: Second Edition—for developers and programmers through the development of coding standards by security researchers, language experts, and software developers using a wiki-based community process. This blog post explores the importance of a well-documented and enforceable coding standard in helping programmers circumvent pitfalls and avoid vulnerabilities.
59451809
submission
heidibrayer writes:
Software applications developed for the Android platform continue to struggle with vulnerabilities, such as activity hijacking, which occurs when a malicious app receives a message (in particular, an intent) that was intended for another app but not explicitly designated for it. The attack can result in leakage of sensitive data or loss of secure control of the affected apps. Another vulnerability is exploited when sensitive information is leaked from a sensitive source to a restricted sink. This blog post is the second in a series that details our work to develop techniques and tools for analyzing code for mobile computing platforms.
