Improving the Usability of Security Requirements by Software Developers through Empirical Studies and Analysis

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Co-Pi:

Abstract

Secure software depends upon the ability of software developers to respond to security risks early in the software development process. Despite a wealth of security requirements, often called security controls, there is a shortfall in the adoption and implementation of these requirements. This shortfall is due to the extensive expertise and higher level cognitive skillsets required to comprehend, decompose and reassemble security requirements concepts in the context of an emerging system design. To address this shortfall, we propose to develop two empirical methods: (1) a method to derive security requirements patterns from requirements catalogues using expert knowledge; and (2) a method to empirically evaluate these patterns for their "usability" by novice software developers against a set of common problem descriptions, including the developer's ability to formulate problems, select and instantiate patterns. The study results will yield a framework for discovering and evaluation security requirements patterns and new scientific knowledge about the limitations of patterns-based approaches when applied by novice software developers.

Hard Problem:

Security requirements are difficult to apply in design and must incorporate system architecture, functional requirements, security policies, regulations, and standards.

OUR TEAM:

PI(s):Travis Breaux, Laurie Williams, Jianwei Niu

Travis Breaux

Dr. Breaux is the Director of the CMU Requirements Engineering Lab, where his research program investigates how to specify and design software to comply with policy and law in a trustworthy, reliable manner. His work historically concerned the empirical extraction of legal requirements from policies and law, and has recently studied how to use formal specifications to reason about privacy policy compliance, how to measure and reason over ambiguous and vague policies, and how security and privacy experts and novices estimate the risk of system designs.

To learn more, read about his ongoing research projects or contact him.