Achieving Absolute Security in Coding

Achieving absolute security in coding is crucial for software development. Simply speaking, the goal of a developer is to write a code that works perfectly well across all the platforms.

Unfortunately, neither experienced nor novice developers know the secure coding practice.

If a developer is not aware of the vulnerabilities and secure coding practices, he is unlikely to heed the security flaws. For this reason, achieving absolute security in coding is paramount to the success of an organization.

An unnoticed security flaw within an application leads to a program crashing or a denial of service attack. In any case, developers should adopt an effective approach to eliminating obvious security flaws in their applications.

Adopting the secure coding practice helps avoid many security flaws that could comprise an application in the foreseeable future. Moreover, it boosts the overall quality of the software.

Programming languages such as C and C++ were ideal for both low-level and high-level programming languages. These languages enable high performance and ease of use.

On the flip side, security was not a matter of great concern at that time. However, with the growing incidents of cyberattacks in the past, it points out security loopholes in C/C++ applications. Therefore, this article aims to equip you with secure coding practice.

Before we move a bit further, we would like to discuss the common vulnerabilities in major programming languages.

Major Vulnerabilities in the Programming Languages

From the security perspective, vulnerability refers to the weakness in an application’s design, configuration, or development. If a hacker manages to identify vulnerability, they could cause serious damage to an application and violate the organization’s security policy.

Being a software developer, you must be aware of the vulnerabilities that have caused serious damages in the past.

Below is the list of some common vulnerabilities.

Buffer Overflow

An application becomes susceptible to buffer overflow if it allows input to write data beyond an allocated memory. Eventually, an attacker can either access an application or crash it. Software written in the C/C++ programming languages is more prone to buffer overflow.

Some strictly-types programming languages, such as Java or C#, are equipped with an array bound checking mechanism that inhibits direct memory access. Thus, these languages are immune to a buffer overflow.

Example

int main (int argc, char const *argv[]){

  char buffer1[4] = 'ABC;'
  char buffer2[4]= 'XYZ;'

  strcpy(buffer2,argv[1]);

  print("buffer1: %s, buffer2:%s\n, buffer1, buffer2")
}

In the example mentioned earlier, the argument will be copied into buffer2 without checking the size. This code flaw makes the application vulnerable to a buffer overflow.

Integer Overflow

An application becomes susceptible to integer overflow if an integer attempts to store a value greater than the proper storage. This fault usually arises because of an arithmetic operation.

From the programming perspective, both C and C++ are unsafe languages. So, they are likely to convert an integer overflow into a buffer overflow.

short int number = 0;
char buffer[greater_value];
while (number<MAX_NUM){
  number += getInput(buffer+number);
}

In the example mentioned above, variables keep creating values smaller than MAX_NUM, leading to an integer overflow. This scenario can also bypass the MAX_NUM-1 types of the buffer.

How Java/.Net Succeeds in Achieving Absolute Security in coding

On the other side of the spectrum, programming languages such as Java and .Net adopts a range-check spectrum that offsets the potential threat of integer overflow.

Best Security Practices for Achieving Absolute Security in Coding

Below is the list of actionable security measures that could help you achieve software development security.

Sanitize Input

As a developer or team lead, you are responsible for sanitizing all the input from untrusted sources. Proper validation of inputs offsets the potential threat of major cyberattacks.

Keep an eye on external data sources. On top of that, command-line argument, user-controlled file, network interfaces, and environment variables.

Pay Attention to Compiler Warnings

Leveraging the warning feature of your compiler, compile the code. After that, eliminate all kinds of warnings by modifying the data.

Additionally, harness static and dynamic analysis tools to identify and remove security loopholes in your applications.

Make Your Application as Simple as Possible

Keep your software design as simple as you can. The more complex the design is, the more errors might arise in your system’s implementation, use, and configuration.

Additionally, it becomes more difficult to achieve absolute security as the security mechanism becomes more complex.

Adopt the Principles of Least Privilege

Every process should execute with minimum privileges deemed crucial for the completion of the job. As a product manager, you should not allow elevated permission to complete the privileged task for more than the required time.

Validate Data Sent to Other Systems

Validate all the data that has to be passed to other subsystems. For instance, command shells, relational databases, and commercial off-the-shelf components. Hackers could invoke unutilized functionality in these components via SQL commands and other injection attacks.

As a developer, you should not deem it an input validation problem because the complex subsystem does not understand the proper context of the call.

Since the calling process understands the proper context, it is responsible for validating the data before invoking the subsystems.

Implement In-Depth Defence

As a developer, it is your responsibility to manage risk with many defence strategies in mind. So, if one defence strategy fails, another strategy is ready for preventing a security flaw from damaging the system.

For instance, vulnerabilities remaining in the code at deployment time could not be exploited in the operational environment if we combine secure programming practice with secure runtime environments.

Use an Effective Quality Standard Technique

Adopting good quality assurance techniques is insanely effective for identifying and eliminating vulnerabilities. An effective quality assurance program includes penetration testing, Fuzz testing, and source code audits.

To strengthen the security of your system, we strongly recommend you conduct an independent security review. Moreover, to bring an independent perspective to your organization, you should allow external reviews.

Adopt Secure Coding Standard

Make sure to use a secure coding technique for your programming language of choice.

Comply with Security Policies

Implement security rules during the SDLC period. At different times, the system requires different rights. In such a situation, split it into many inter-linked sub-components.

Define and Document Security Requirements for Your System

Identify all the document requirements early in the software development lifecycle. Moreover, make sure that your development end product must comply with these requirements.

If you forget to document the software requirements beforehand, you cannot properly evaluate the security of the resulting system.

External Resources

If you would like to learn more about secure coding practice, visit the OWASP secure coding practice guide.