A Method for Resolving Security Vulnerabilities Through the Use of Design Patterns

Abstract

Most software development companies conduct in-house testing of their code prior to releasing their product, yet software vulnerabilities are still found every single day in the most prevalent of applications. Memory corruption vulnerabilities are amongst the most difficult to detect, but can be the most dangerous. This research presents both an effective taxonomy of these vulnerabilities, which can be used to identify software threats and a methodology to maximize the number of memory corruption vulnerabilities that are identified during software testing. A means of cataloguing such vulnerabilities was required: As design patterns were already familiar to software engineers the use of a pattern language seemed appropriate, particularly as the solution to the vulnerabilities lay in the software engineering domain.