Introduction to Software Design

Loading...

En provenance du cours de University of Colorado System

Software Design as an Element of the Software Development Lifecycle

42 notes

Explore Related Videos

At Coursera, you will find the best lectures in the world. Here are some of our personalized recommendations for you

University of Colorado System

Software Design as an Element of the Software Development Lifecycle

42 notes

Cours 1 sur 4 dans Specialization Secure Software Design

This course talks about software development lifecycles a description/prescription for how we write software. Design is a step in this life cycle, and the course explores the implications of this. Design has a role in the life cycle; it is always there, regardless of the kind of life cycle we’re talking about. Why is that? Why was design considered as a step in this life cycle?

À partir de la leçon

Design, is a Thoughtful Process

Design requires that you be much more than minimally knowledgeable about your project and how to accomplish it.

Introduction to Software Design6:26

Rencontrer les enseignants

Albert Glock
Instructor
Computer Science

Welcome to the Secure Software Design Specialization.

My name is Al Glock and I'm the instructor for this course.

Why am I teaching this?

Let me give you a bit of my background.

In addition to the basic courses we offer on Java and

data structures, I teach computer organization and assembly language.

Computer architecture and the software engineering series, of course,

is at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

I consult for companies in the aerospace and defense business.

Prior to teaching at UCCS,

I worked for a large defense contractor in software development in management jobs.

I have been a project manager in the venture capital funded private sector, and

I have won several small business innovation research contracts.

I spent 20 years in the United States Airforce both in the political science and

engineering fields.

I wrote software, particularly simulation software, in both fields.

I have been involved in requirements and

design phases of large government contracts.

So in essence, I've seen large software development from both the government and

the contractor sides.

And in case you're interested, I wrote my first program

in IBM 1401 assembly language when I was 15 years old.

I think it added some numbers together.

This specialization is as significant as it is amorphous.

In many software development shops,

designing security into the software is of huge importance.

Nevertheless the boundaries of what constitutes secure design are unclear.

Is it a matter of implementing a checklist of secure measures?

Does it extend a threat analysis and mitigation?

Does secure software design include broader areas such as system architecture?

Does it extend into coding practices?

Of course, there are more boundary pushing matters than these.

Add to this, the fact that the threat is constantly changing.

The bad guys are at least as clever and creative and motivated as the good guys.

The fact that the threat landscape is constantly changing

is hugely significant to us who are trying to produce secure software designs.

What it means is that what is secure today may not be secure tomorrow.

Later on I will discuss the stack overflow technique.

This demonstration will show that insecure practices can be buried deep in the code.

It will show that a lot of knowledge about machine design, assembly language

instructions, and CPU architecture come into play to make the exploit work.

In my experience it is very rare to have a person in any role in

a software development effort who commands the breath and depth of knowledge.

This means that a designer handling threats is no ordinary designer.

The designer must be able to look at the software from multiple perspectives

at a very macro level and the designer must also be able to understand

the workings of the algorithms and the machine right down to the silicon.

In the third section of the specialization,

we'll take a look at Bitcoin and examine its security features.

I'm sure that this will give you an appreciation for

the wide range of capabilities and skills a good designer must have.

But don't be dismayed,

don't think that you have to be super human to design secure software.

We'll talk about how secure software design is largely good software design.

Design principles which are known for decades are effective mitigations for

today's security concerns.

It's just that the race to market for under the pressure of budget and

schedule, a lot of these good design principles have been skipped.

So we'll go back, talk about the basics.

Admittedly, however, this is a necessary but

in itself insufficient formula for software security.

Here's a broad outline of what we're going to do.

The Secure Software Design Specialization is composed of four courses.

In this first course, we'll talk about the software development life cycle and

how design fits into it.

We'll look at design as an element of the software development life cycle.

In fact, that is the purpose of this section of the course.

In the second course, we'll look at design as an abstraction and

see how that differs from what design does in the life cycle.

In the third course, we'll look at design methods and tools.

These will be conventional methods and tools, things that have been around for

a long time but

which can have an impact on security if understood and used properly.

We'll conclude the third section with a look at Bitcoin, and

how cleverly and intimately security is worked into the design.

Finally in the fourth course we'll take a look at specific threats and

mitigations of those threats.

In summary, this first course in the Secure Software Design Specialization

examines design as an element of the software development life cycle.

The second course looks at design as an abstraction.

The third course looks at design methods and tools, and

the fourth course deals with threats and mitigations.

In closing I would like to make clear that this course won't teach you checked lists.

We're not going to say, do this and you'll be secure.

Rather, what I want you to do is sensitize you to the dynamic nature of the threat

landscape.

And perhaps realize that designing software to be completely secure

when run on any machine is virtually impossible.

When you're faced with a software design challenge, I hope this course will have

given you ways to think about your situation which will lead you to specific

steps that will work to secure your software for the moment.

Thanks for your time.

Explorer notre catalogue

Rejoignez-nous gratuitement et obtenez des recommendations, des mises à jour et des offres personnalisées.

Coursera propose un accès universel à la meilleure formation au monde, en partenariat avec des universités et des organisations du plus haut niveau, pour proposer des cours en ligne.

© 2019 Coursera Inc. Tous droits réservés.

Télécharger dans l'App Store

Disponible sur Google Play