A Question of Quality

["Yousef Syed" <yousef.syed () gmail com>]

Why isn't Quality Assumed?
Why isn't Security Assumed?
Why are these concepts thought of as add ons to Applications and Services?

Why do they need to be specified, when they should be taken for granted?
 - Input Validation
 - Boundary Conditions
 - Encrypt Data as necessary
 - Least Privilege Access
 - White lists are better than Black lists

I'm approaching this from more of a development/services perspective,
but I'm sure it applies to others. So why should the need for any of
the above genuinely need to be stipulated?
The knowledge is out there.
The tools are out there.
And it doesn't take a huge effort to do - but can save a huge effort
in the future.


I realize that this is a bit of a rant, but I really do believe that
software quality and our expectations surrounding software quality is
worth talking about. During the development life-cycle of a product,
various requirements are stipulated; however, all quality and security
seems to get ignored unless each specific matter has been added to the
requirements.
Architects and designers don't push back on requirements due to
quality or security issues; but rather, due to the difficulty to
implement it. Code reviews don't through back client code with
username/passwords embedded, but they do throw it back because it
doesn't follow the stipulated coding/naming standards. Testing and
reviewing have their place in this, but I do feel that our focus is
often on some of the wrong things.


I'll leave it there for now so you guys can comment.

ys

--
Yousef Syed
CISSP

http://www.linkedin.com/in/musashi

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