Re: InformIT: comparing static analysis tools

[Gary McGraw <gem () cigital com>]

hi arian,

Glad you liked the article.

I guess my brush was a bit too wide when it comes to dynamic testing.  I
was really only referring to the Web application testing tools which in my
mind "hit the wall" for two reasons.  Reason one is that they only work
over port80 and are designed to take advantage of the fact that HTTP is a
stateless protocol (with a few small caveats).  IMPORTANT NOTE: lots of
software is not web software (sorry Jeremiah).  Reason two has to do with
the canned nature of the tests.  The generic tests in the black box Web
app testing tools are, well, generic.  If your software falls prey to
those tests, it sucks.  IMPORTANT NOTE: Lots of software does, in fact,
suck.

As you probably know I call those tools "badness-ometers" and also
***suggest that everyone buy and use one***. See this ancient post (and
associated informIT article) from 2007:

http://www.cigital.com/justiceleague/2007/03/19/badness-ometers-are-good-do
-you-own-one/

Now, there are many other kinds of dynamic testing tools (think of any
kind of fault injection tool).  I wrote a software engineering tome about
that way back in 1998 called Software Fault Injection
<http://tinyurl.com/4ao6twv>.  And you are right that dynamic testing has
a place.  However, short of fuzzing tools generally tied to a
grammar-based protocol and capture-replay tools there are not very many
dynamic testing tools that work for non-Web software.  Why not?  Because
genericizing is too hard, making the potential market for a particular
tool too small.

Security testing plays a key role in the Touchpoints (my own and Cigital's
approach to SDLC integration) which are described in Software Security
<http://swsec.com>.  Hoglund and I also describe some dynamic tools that
we screwed around with when writing Exploiting Software in 2004
<http://www.exploitingsoftware.com/>.  I am in complete agreement that
dynamic testing is important for software security.

One quibble with your question.  You can't push dynamic testing very far
back in the SDLC, because your code has to run before you can test it
dynamically.  For me, way back in the SDLC means architectural risk
analysis or even security requirements analysis.

Sorry for the multiple invocations of the way back machine!  I must be
getting old.

gem

company www.cigital.com
podcast www.cigital.com/silverbullet
blog www.cigital.com/justiceleague
book www.swsec.com



On 2/3/11 7:26 PM, "Arian J. Evans" <arian.evans () anachronic com> wrote:

> Great article, Gary. Many of your comments about static technology
> challenges I have seen and verified first-hand, including
> multi-million dollar cost overruns. After some great dialogue with
> John Stevens, I suspect we have had similar experiences.
>
> I was just about to write a similar article at a higher level - about
> how the vast majority of enterprise customers I work with are actively
> moving security into the SDLC. The time has come, the event has
> tipped, and SDLC security is indeed mainstream. This is an exciting
> time to be in the industry.
>
> However - I was curious about your comments about dynamic tools
> "reaching their limit" or something like that, as customers move
> security efforts deeper into the SDLC. What does that mean?
>
> I see customers making extensive use of dynamic testing, and
> leveraging it deeper and deeper into the SDLC. Enterprises are
> aggressively rolling out and expanding dynamic testing earlier in the
> SDLC. Newer dynamic testing technologies help solve/reduce some of the
> key pain points that static technologies alone are causing them, as
> you so well illustrated..
> .
> I am very interested in why you sound dismissive of these successful
> technologies? Your article makes it sound like they are hitting some
> invisible limit, when in fact hundreds of enterprises are expanding
> dynamic testing in the SDLC. And these are serious projects that run
> into the 7-figures.
>
> Any insight you can share would be appreciated!
>
> Great work identifying the general shift SDLC security is moving
> mainstream,
>
> ---
> Arian Evans
> Software Security Referee
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 6:48 AM, Gary McGraw <gem () cigital com> wrote:
> > hi sc-l,
> >
> > John Steven and I recently collaborated on an article for informIT.
> > The article is called "Software [In]security: Comparing Apples, Oranges,
> > and Aardvarks (or, All Static Analysis Tools Are Not Created Equal)" and
> > is available here:
> > http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1680863
> >
> > Now that static analysis tools like Fortify and Ounce are hitting the
> > mainstream there are many potential customers who want to compare them
> > and pick the best one.  We explain why that's more difficult than it
> > sounds at first and what to watch out for as you begin to compare tools.
> > We did this in order to get out in front of "test suites" that purport
> > to work for tool comparison.  If you wonder why such suites may not work
> > as advertised, read the article.
> >
> > Your feedback is welcome.
> >
> > gem
> >
> > company www.cigital.com
> > podcast www.cigital.com/silverbullet
> > blog www.cigital.com/justiceleague
> > book www.swsec.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > _______________________________________________


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