Catalog of Metrics for Assessing Security Risks of Software throughout the Software Development Life Cycle

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new set of metrics for building secure software systems. The proposed metrics aim to address security risks throughout the entire software development life cycle (SDLC). The importance of this work comes from the fact that assessing security risks at early stages of the development life cycle can help implement efficient solutions before the software is delivered to the customer. The proposed metrics are defined using the goal/question/metric method. It is anticipated that software engineers will use these metrics in combination with other techniques to detect security risks and prevent these risks from becoming reality. This work is part of a larger research project that aims at examining the concept of "Design for Security". The objective is to investigate software engineering techniques to support security requirements from the very beginning of the development process.