Building Secure Software: How to Avoid Security Problems the Right Way

Foreword

We wouldn’t have to spend so much time, money, and effort on network security if we didn’t have such bad software security. Think about the most recent security vulnerability about which you’ve read. Maybe it’s a killer packet that allows an attacker to crash some server by sending it a particular packet. Maybe it’s one of the gazillions of buffer overflows that allow an attacker to take control of a computer by sending it a particular malformed message. Maybe it’s an encryption vulnerability that allows an attacker to read an encrypted message or to fool an authentication system. These are all software issues.

Sometimes, network security can defend against these vulnerabilities. Sometimes the firewall can be set to block particular ...