The application of techniques to assess, mitigate, and defend software systems from vulnerabilities is known as software security. These methods ensure that software continues to function while remaining secure.
Developing secure software necessitates thinking about security at every stage of the development process.
Definition of Software Security
Software security is the practice of ensuring that computer software works reliably in the presence of malicious inputs. Such as viruses, hackers, or other adversarial entities; and is defended against accidental or intentional misuse. For example, as privilege escalation, information leakage by programmers, administrators, and users.
The application of methods to ensure that software functions while remaining secure. It is also the practice of defending programs against malicious users and computers. Others call it the art of building software that is resistant to attack.
Software security is concerned with both reliability and correctness. Reliability addresses issues such as software errors caused by programming mistakes or faulty logic, while correctness here refers to the ability to defend the software against threats such as code injection attacks or remote buffer overflow attacks. Correctness is concerned with the ability of software to resist any possible attacks.
Software Security Testing Techniques
Testing techniques are divided into two parts: White box testing and black-box testing. White box testing examines the source code for security vulnerabilities. Black box testing does not have access to the source code but instead tests for vulnerabilities by attempting to exploit it or by analyzing its behavior.
White Box Testing
White box testing examines the source code of the software under test. It attempts to identify software weaknesses by analyzing the source code and determining the probable errors and flaws in it. Moreover, it is useful for testing the logic and flow of a program. It is also a clear box testing or structural testing because it considers the software from its structure and logical viewpoint.
Black Box Testing
Black box testing examines a system or device without knowing its internal structures and workings (the “Black Box” approach). It commonly relies on an outside-in view of system operation, emphasizing process flow and control flow models to simulate attacks from outside the system boundary. This is opposed to white box testing, which uses an inside-out approach by directly examining the source code.
Pseudorandom Testing
Pseudorandomized tests are a form of random testing in which a series of inputs are generated from a finite, usually small, set of possible inputs. When the value of a test input is calculated with the use of a pseudorandom number generator, then that test case is called a pseudorandom test case. Additionally, the execution of such a test case is called pseudorandomized execution. Pseudorandom testing is typically used as a black box test technique.
Fuzz Testing
Fuzz testing is a software testing technique that involves providing invalid, unexpected, or random data as inputs to a computer program. The program is then monitored for exceptions such as crashes, or failing built-in code assertions, or for detecting potential memory leaks.
