Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
Please note, it's trivial to convert bytecode to source code in both the .NET and Java ecosystems. This distinction feels more sales centric, but is not technically correct, IMO. You can convert bytecode to something that will recompile (usually) but you can't truly renerate source code. Code comments aren't preserved, for example. And if the project wasn't built with javac debug info on, you get even less. This is a subtle difference, but an important one. I understand where you are coming from, though. I suspect -- having pen tested many a corporate network in my time -- that we protect customers' IP better than they do on their own internal networks. Oh, the irony. :) I think Chris Wysopal's reply hit the nail on the head though; we've been vetted by countless customers and a number of three letter government agencies, and we've always managed to overcome objections. I believe people will become more comfortable over time, as cloud services become more prevalent. A decade ago, some companies were afraid to let you pen test their web apps! Chris Eng Senior Director, Research Veracode, Inc. Office: 781.418.3828 Mobile: 617.501.3280 c...@veracode.com -Original Message- From: Jim Manico [mailto:jim.man...@owasp.org] Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 11:34 PM To: Chris Eng Cc: Chris Wysopal; Secure Code Mailing List Subject: Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools Hello Chris, Thanks for replying! I think the reaction from my boss was not so much knee-jerk, but a reasonable concern. The risk of persisting intellectual property on a cloud service is real. And that risk differs depending on your business (as well as many other factors). I'm eager to see vendors like Veracode publish more assurance evidence, especially around how they write software (I'm a lot less worried about the infrastructure in play, that is pretty much a solved issue. Building secure software is not). I published an OWASP Podcast with ChrisW recently http://www.owasp.org/download/jmanico/owasp_podcast_80.mp3 and frankly, I was impressed. The only issue that I thought was NOT answered in depth was regarding software centric assurance evidence - especially since that is your core business. (automated scanning plus manual penetration tests, multi-factor authentication, extremely granular roles and access controls, per-application backend encryption of results, flexible retention policies, etc.). Now this is a great start. I'd like to hear more. How do you do data contextual access control? How you do key management for backend encryption? Are you encrypting db backups? How do you do input validation and contextual encoding? How do you ensure that all queries are parametrized/bound? Etc..etc... Perhaps we can get one of you on the show to discuss how YOU write secure software, and how you prove that to your clients? Assessment is interesting, but lessons in building security in is much more important to our industry right now, IMO. First, the customer needs to understand that they are NOT, in fact, uploading their code.They are uploading binaries -- compiled code, or bytecode -- not their source. Please note, it's trivial to convert bytecode to source code in both the .NET and Java ecosystems. This distinction feels more sales centric, but is not technically correct, IMO. Regards, Jim I'm not the Chris you posed the question to but I'll answer anyway. :) Usually the type of response you described is a knee-jerk reaction. It's a different model than people are used to, and sometimes people are averse to change, whether that's warranted or not. It's important to get past the initial reaction and actually have a substantive conversation. Naturally, we try to understand each customer's specific hang-ups, but generally speaking there are a couple of things we always cover. Viewing this with a wider lens, there are a lot of factors involved in selecting a tool/service vendor. One factor that comes into play for us is simply that our solution scales, and many others do not. We can address the application supply chain problem in ways that others can't. -chris Chris Eng Senior Director, Research Veracode, Inc. Office: 781.418.3828 Mobile: 617.501.3280 c...@veracode.com ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
Very well said Chris. Can you explain what you mean by . bias-alertI think SaaS based software is more easily consumed and this isn't any different for software security/bias-alert Sent from my iPhone On Feb 3, 2011, at 2:54 PM, Chris Wysopal cwyso...@veracode.com wrote: . bias-alertI think SaaS based software is more easily consumed and this isn't any different for software security/bias-alert ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
Jim, Maybe you would have had more success if you explicitly said in the cloud ;-) - Steve On Thu, 3 Feb 2011, Jim Manico wrote: Chris, I've tried to leverage Veracode in recent engagements. Here is how the conversation went: Jim: Boss, can I upload all of your code to this cool SaaS service for analysis? ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
On 3 February 2011 16:02, Jim Manico jim.man...@owasp.org wrote: Chris, I've tried to leverage Veracode in recent engagements. Here is how the conversation went: Jim: Boss, can I upload all of your code to this cool SaaS service for analysis? Client: Uh no, and next time you ask, I'm having you committed. I'm sure you have faced these objections before. How do you work around them? Don't use SaaS, obviously. I'd rather see LLVM's static analysis tools get improved (the framework, btw, is really nice to work with). -Jim Manico http://manico.net On Feb 3, 2011, at 1:54 PM, Chris Wysopal cwyso...@veracode.com wrote: Nice article. In the 5 years Veracode has been selling static analysis services we have seen the market mature. In the beginning, organizations were down in the weeds. What false positive rate or false negative rate does the tool/service have over a test suite such as SAMATE. Then we saw a move up to looking at the trees. Did the tool/service support the Java frameworks I am using? Now we are seeing organizations look at the forest. Can I scale static analysis effectively over all my development sites, my outsourcers, and vendors? This is a good sign of a maturing market. It is my firm belief that software security has a consumption problem. We know what the defects are. We know how to fix them. We even have automation for detecting a lot of them. The problem is getting the information and technology to the right person at the right time effectively and managing an organization-wide program. This is the next challenge for static analysis. bias-alertI think SaaS based software is more easily consumed and this isn't any different for software security/bias-alert -Chris -Original Message- From: sc-l-boun...@securecoding.org [mailto: sc-l-boun...@securecoding.org] On Behalf Of Gary McGraw Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 9:49 AM To: Secure Code Mailing List Subject: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools 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 ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC ( http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___ ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC ( http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___ ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___ ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
Uploading code isn't an issue with software vendors because we are analyzing the artifact that they ship to their customer anyway; the executable version of their software, not source code. Unless of course the executable is source code which is the case for JSP or PHP, and other scripting languages but they are shipping that to their customer so why not send it to us. If it is an enterprise app that never leaves the four walls of the business then the business has to look at our independent Systrust certification from EY, our independent penetration test results, our employee background checks and our NDAs and decide whether it is worth the risk. For 11 of the top 25 banks in the world we have passed this test. We have had due diligence teams from 3 letter agencies and Fortune 50 companies come and kick our tires and we have never failed to pass this test. Our environment is designed so our customers IP, their executables, is only decrypted on an engine analysis machine for the duration of the analysis. Veracode was founded by security people. We are a security company. I think this shows through in everything we do. -Chris -Original Message- From: Jim Manico [mailto:jim.man...@owasp.org] Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 7:02 PM To: Chris Wysopal Cc: Gary McGraw; Secure Code Mailing List Subject: Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools Chris, I've tried to leverage Veracode in recent engagements. Here is how the conversation went: Jim: Boss, can I upload all of your code to this cool SaaS service for analysis? Client: Uh no, and next time you ask, I'm having you committed. I'm sure you have faced these objections before. How do you work around them? -Jim Manico http://manico.net On Feb 3, 2011, at 1:54 PM, Chris Wysopal cwyso...@veracode.com wrote: Nice article. In the 5 years Veracode has been selling static analysis services we have seen the market mature. In the beginning, organizations were down in the weeds. What false positive rate or false negative rate does the tool/service have over a test suite such as SAMATE. Then we saw a move up to looking at the trees. Did the tool/service support the Java frameworks I am using? Now we are seeing organizations look at the forest. Can I scale static analysis effectively over all my development sites, my outsourcers, and vendors? This is a good sign of a maturing market. It is my firm belief that software security has a consumption problem. We know what the defects are. We know how to fix them. We even have automation for detecting a lot of them. The problem is getting the information and technology to the right person at the right time effectively and managing an organization-wide program. This is the next challenge for static analysis. bias-alertI think SaaS based software is more easily consumed and this isn't any different for software security/bias-alert -Chris -Original Message- From: sc-l-boun...@securecoding.org [mailto:sc-l-boun...@securecoding.org] On Behalf Of Gary McGraw Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 9:49 AM To: Secure Code Mailing List Subject: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools 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 ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___ ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
Many of traditional benefits of SaaS: no software to install, scaling from group to enterprise, and ease of central management, make it easier to roll out and manage software security programs enterprise wide. The bigger and more diverse an organization is the more these “consumption” benefits kick in. -Chris From: Prasad N Shenoy [mailto:prasad.she...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 9:02 PM To: Chris Wysopal Cc: Gary McGraw; Secure Code Mailing List Subject: Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools Very well said Chris. Can you explain what you mean by . bias-alertI think SaaS based software is more easily consumed and this isn't any different for software security/bias-alert Sent from my iPhone On Feb 3, 2011, at 2:54 PM, Chris Wysopal cwyso...@veracode.commailto:cwyso...@veracode.com wrote: . bias-alertI think SaaS based software is more easily consumed and this isn't any different for software security/bias-alert ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
Hi Gary, No offense taken. :) Securing Web software is a plenty big enough challenge for me. 270+ million websites accessible to 2 billion people. And let's not even go into the hundreds of thousands of mobile apps, which are basically all mini webapps. After I'm done solving that problem I'll think about moving on to mainframes, operating systems, and databases. uhh, maybe not. One thing in your note deserves further WebAppSec clarity: 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. Very true, no one appreciates this better than us. As you probably know the Agile approach to software development is winning out in the Web application world. Release early. Release fast. Release often. Push or die on Tuesday, that's the motto. This means the time distance between architectural risk analysis / security requirements analysis and production deployment is roughly 2 - 4 weeks (6 max). Whatever analysis necessary to perform must also be repeated on each iteration in case a change impacts the entire system. Maybe you do not agree? Then QA testing windows are shortened to 1 - 3 days regardless of the preferred method of software security testing (SAST or DAST). Collective then this all begs the question, what forms of software security checks does the enterprise have the time and resources to deploy. Regards, Jeremiah- On Feb 4, 2011, at 2:47 AM, Gary McGraw wrote: 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.ev...@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
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
Yeah, clear the cloud of confusion before talking about the cloud so to speak. Not all SaaS offerings available today qualify to be cloud based. Well, this thread got morphed into a cloudy discussion. Attempting to get back on track, I would say IMHO, it's subjective whether the static analysis or dynamic analysis (pen testing/bb testing) technologies have hit the wall - depends on who you ask. There is some element of saturation there I believe else the industry (term very generously used here)won't be focusing on things like Hybrid Analysis. Having said that, what's the future of HA? Sent from my iPhone On Feb 4, 2011, at 12:27 PM, Ben Laurie b...@google.com wrote: On 4 February 2011 09:22, Chris Wysopal cwyso...@veracode.com wrote: “Breaking news. Google says not to use the cloud. Improving on-premise tools is the future.” My view is personal. However, in general, whether the cloud is a good place for your data depends on your data and the relationship you have with the cloud provider. If your boss says no, you can't push this stuff outside our network then clearly the cloud is not the right answer (or your boss doesn't understand the problem). Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. J -Chris From: Ben Laurie [mailto:b...@google.com] Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 11:34 AM To: Jim Manico Cc: Chris Wysopal; Secure Code Mailing List Subject: Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools On 3 February 2011 16:02, Jim Manico jim.man...@owasp.org wrote: Chris, I've tried to leverage Veracode in recent engagements. Here is how the conversation went: Jim: Boss, can I upload all of your code to this cool SaaS service for analysis? Client: Uh no, and next time you ask, I'm having you committed. I'm sure you have faced these objections before. How do you work around them? Don't use SaaS, obviously. I'd rather see LLVM's static analysis tools get improved (the framework, btw, is really nice to work with). -Jim Manico http://manico.net On Feb 3, 2011, at 1:54 PM, Chris Wysopal cwyso...@veracode.com wrote: Nice article. In the 5 years Veracode has been selling static analysis services we have seen the market mature. In the beginning, organizations were down in the weeds. What false positive rate or false negative rate does the tool/service have over a test suite such as SAMATE. Then we saw a move up to looking at the trees. Did the tool/service support the Java frameworks I am using? Now we are seeing organizations look at the forest. Can I scale static analysis effectively over all my development sites, my outsourcers, and vendors? This is a good sign of a maturing market. It is my firm belief that software security has a consumption problem. We know what the defects are. We know how to fix them. We even have automation for detecting a lot of them. The problem is getting the information and technology to the right person at the right time effectively and managing an organization-wide program. This is the next challenge for static analysis. bias-alertI think SaaS based software is more easily consumed and this isn't any different for software security/bias-alert -Chris -Original Message- From: sc-l-boun...@securecoding.org [mailto:sc-l-boun...@securecoding.org] On Behalf Of Gary McGraw Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 9:49 AM To: Secure Code Mailing List Subject: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools 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 ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
That is a great question. According to Gartner, HA has the stench of inevitability. And in general, I agree. There are cases where dynamic and static each have clear strengths. Pragmatic combination of of the two has promise is solving a broad spectrum of test-cases. Additionally -HA can help improve each other by improving context, but developing the underlying technology to make that happen is non-trivial. This is my guess as to how things will unfold: Current HA attempts are at the vuln-mashup phase. Let's call this correlation. FP reduction: the next step that folks are working on in HA is suppression therapy. e.g- using correlation to filter and suppress false-positives, increase signal-to-noise in output from both analysis types. FN reduction: HA has the promise of heatmapping coverage of both static and dynamic testing. This would more fully allow the expert running the solution to see what is and isn't getting covered. This provides a better notion of False Negatives, and allow targeted tuning and optimization. Or decide where best to focus expert human review efforts. Contextualization: The holy grail of HA would be to automatically have both types of automation feed and tune each other. Black box would be significantly enhanced by being feed framework config files, and getting access to things like function names/parameters and objects that are not directly exposed. This would really help dynamic on MVC testing. Likewise, I expect dynamic testing could provide some notion of design or control-flow back to the static engine to enhance static authentication and authorization analysis. This would also help solve for mobile: static could extract calls and functions from mobile binaries, and dynamic could test the back-end web services they talk to more effectively with that static context. Context enhancement via HA, however, is kind of the holy grail of HA. While it sounds great in theory, the complexity bar is high enough it may be a long time coming. As development shifts to more modular code on top of platforms (iphone, xbox, rails, etc.) this is also driving interest in lightweight solutions that can scan modular bits of code. Given that, I think there is room for a very simplified, streamlined type of HA to provide simple SAST that can feed a DAST unit-test type capability. This is probably more realistic to build than the Ultimate Context Integration Engine idea mentioned above. The more the world moves towards coding in this manner, the more a solution like this make sense. You would miss a lot, but it should be lightweight and actually work. For now though - the HA options boil down to mashups, and whether or not suppression therapy is right for you. We will see where it goes next... --- Arian Evans Software Security Scanning Snob On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Prasad N Shenoy prasad.she...@gmail.com wrote: Yeah, clear the cloud of confusion before talking about the cloud so to speak. Not all SaaS offerings available today qualify to be cloud based. Well, this thread got morphed into a cloudy discussion. Attempting to get back on track, I would say IMHO, it's subjective whether the static analysis or dynamic analysis (pen testing/bb testing) technologies have hit the wall - depends on who you ask. There is some element of saturation there I believe else the industry (term very generously used here)won't be focusing on things like Hybrid Analysis. Having said that, what's the future of HA? Sent from my iPhone On Feb 4, 2011, at 12:27 PM, Ben Laurie b...@google.com wrote: On 4 February 2011 09:22, Chris Wysopal cwyso...@veracode.com wrote: “Breaking news. Google says not to use the cloud. Improving on-premise tools is the future.” My view is personal. However, in general, whether the cloud is a good place for your data depends on your data and the relationship you have with the cloud provider. If your boss says no, you can't push this stuff outside our network then clearly the cloud is not the right answer (or your boss doesn't understand the problem). Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. J -Chris From: Ben Laurie [mailto:b...@google.com] Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 11:34 AM To: Jim Manico Cc: Chris Wysopal; Secure Code Mailing List Subject: Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools On 3 February 2011 16:02, Jim Manico jim.man...@owasp.org wrote: Chris, I've tried to leverage Veracode in recent engagements. Here is how the conversation went: Jim: Boss, can I upload all of your code to this cool SaaS service for analysis? Client: Uh no, and next time you ask, I'm having you committed. I'm sure you have faced these objections before. How do you work around them? Don't use SaaS, obviously. I'd rather see LLVM's static analysis tools get improved (the framework, btw, is really nice to work with). -Jim Manico http://manico.net On Feb 3, 2011, at 1:54 PM, Chris Wysopal cwyso...@veracode.com wrote
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
Hello Chris, Thanks for replying! I think the reaction from my boss was not so much knee-jerk, but a reasonable concern. The risk of persisting intellectual property on a cloud service is real. And that risk differs depending on your business (as well as many other factors). I'm eager to see vendors like Veracode publish more assurance evidence, especially around how they write software (I'm a lot less worried about the infrastructure in play, that is pretty much a solved issue. Building secure software is not). I published an OWASP Podcast with ChrisW recently http://www.owasp.org/download/jmanico/owasp_podcast_80.mp3 and frankly, I was impressed. The only issue that I thought was NOT answered in depth was regarding software centric assurance evidence - especially since that is your core business. (automated scanning plus manual penetration tests, multi-factor authentication, extremely granular roles and access controls, per-application backend encryption of results, flexible retention policies, etc.). Now this is a great start. I'd like to hear more. How do you do data contextual access control? How you do key management for backend encryption? Are you encrypting db backups? How do you do input validation and contextual encoding? How do you ensure that all queries are parametrized/bound? Etc..etc... Perhaps we can get one of you on the show to discuss how YOU write secure software, and how you prove that to your clients? Assessment is interesting, but lessons in building security in is much more important to our industry right now, IMO. First, the customer needs to understand that they are NOT, in fact, uploading their code.They are uploading binaries -- compiled code, or bytecode -- not their source. Please note, it's trivial to convert bytecode to source code in both the .NET and Java ecosystems. This distinction feels more sales centric, but is not technically correct, IMO. Regards, Jim I'm not the Chris you posed the question to but I'll answer anyway. :) Usually the type of response you described is a knee-jerk reaction. It's a different model than people are used to, and sometimes people are averse to change, whether that's warranted or not. It's important to get past the initial reaction and actually have a substantive conversation. Naturally, we try to understand each customer's specific hang-ups, but generally speaking there are a couple of things we always cover. Viewing this with a wider lens, there are a lot of factors involved in selecting a tool/service vendor. One factor that comes into play for us is simply that our solution scales, and many others do not. We can address the application supply chain problem in ways that others can't. -chris Chris Eng Senior Director, Research Veracode, Inc. Office: 781.418.3828 Mobile: 617.501.3280 c...@veracode.com ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
Hey Gary, Nice article. A brief note, Ounce is dead. The product was renamed IBM Rational AppScan Source Edition after IBM's acquisition of Ounce. Small matter but for what it's worth, Jim 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 ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___ ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
All, I followed this article up with a blog entry, more targeted at adopting organizations. I hope you find it useful: http://www.cigital.com/justiceleague/2011/02/02/if-its-so-hard-why-bother/ John Steven Senior Director; Advanced Technology Consulting Desk: 703.404.9293 x1204 Cell: 703.727.4034 Key fingerprint = 4772 F7F3 1019 4668 62AD 94B0 AE7F EEF4 62D5 F908 Blog: http://www.cigital.com/justiceleague Papers: http://www.cigital.com/papers/jsteven http://www.cigital.com Software Confidence. Achieved. 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. smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
Chris, I've tried to leverage Veracode in recent engagements. Here is how the conversation went: Jim: Boss, can I upload all of your code to this cool SaaS service for analysis? Client: Uh no, and next time you ask, I'm having you committed. I'm sure you have faced these objections before. How do you work around them? -Jim Manico http://manico.net On Feb 3, 2011, at 1:54 PM, Chris Wysopal cwyso...@veracode.com wrote: Nice article. In the 5 years Veracode has been selling static analysis services we have seen the market mature. In the beginning, organizations were down in the weeds. What false positive rate or false negative rate does the tool/service have over a test suite such as SAMATE. Then we saw a move up to looking at the trees. Did the tool/service support the Java frameworks I am using? Now we are seeing organizations look at the forest. Can I scale static analysis effectively over all my development sites, my outsourcers, and vendors? This is a good sign of a maturing market. It is my firm belief that software security has a consumption problem. We know what the defects are. We know how to fix them. We even have automation for detecting a lot of them. The problem is getting the information and technology to the right person at the right time effectively and managing an organization-wide program. This is the next challenge for static analysis. bias-alertI think SaaS based software is more easily consumed and this isn't any different for software security/bias-alert -Chris -Original Message- From: sc-l-boun...@securecoding.org [mailto:sc-l-boun...@securecoding.org] On Behalf Of Gary McGraw Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 9:49 AM To: Secure Code Mailing List Subject: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools 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 ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___ ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___ ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___
Re: [SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
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 g...@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 ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___ ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___
[SC-L] InformIT: comparing static analysis tools
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 ___ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php SC-L is hosted and moderated by KRvW Associates, LLC (http://www.KRvW.com) as a free, non-commercial service to the software security community. Follow KRvW Associates on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/KRvW_Associates ___
