Writing Secure Code, Second Edition [Paperback]

Michael Howard (Author), David LeBlanc (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0735617228 | ISBN-13: 978-0735617223 | Edition: 2nd ed.

Keep black-hat hackers at bay with the tips and techniques in this entertaining, eye-opening book! Developers will learn how to padlock their applications throughout the entire development process—from designing secure applications to writing robust code that can withstand repeated attacks to testing applications for security flaws. Easily digested chapters reveal proven principles, strategies, and coding techniques. The authors—two battle-scarred veterans who have solved some of the industry’s toughest security problems—provide sample code in several languages. This edition includes updated information about threat modeling, designing a security process, international issues, file-system issues, adding privacy to applications, and performing security code reviews. It also includes enhanced coverage of buffer overruns, Microsoft® .NET security, and Microsoft ActiveX® development, plus practical checklists for developers, testers, and program managers.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

No more malicious attacks! Learn the best practices for writing secure code, with samples in Microsoft Visual Basic®.NET, Visual C++®, Perl, and Visual C#®. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Michael Howard, CISSP, is a leading security expert. He is a senior security program manager at Microsoft® and the coauthor of The Software Security Development Lifecycle. Michael has worked on Windows security since 1992 and now focuses on secure design, programming, and testing techniques. He is the consulting editor for the Secure Software Development Series of books by Microsoft Press.

David LeBlanc, Ph.D., is a founding member of the Trustworthy Computing Initiative at Microsoft®. He has been developing solutions for computing security issues since 1992 and has created award-winning tools for assessing network security and uncovering security vulnerabilities. David is a senior developer in the Microsoft Office Trustworthy Computing group.

Product Details

• Paperback: 798 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press; 2nd ed. edition (January 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735617228
• ISBN-13: 978-0735617223
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 0.7 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #289,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

133 of 154 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Not writing non-secure code for Windows November 30, 2003

By Dmitry Dvoinikov

Format:Paperback

The title of the book is misleading to begin with. The book is not about writing secure code. It's about (1) not writing non-secure code and (2) using Windows specific security APIs.

(1) Not writing non-secure code. Covers several issues, some more obvious, like buffer overruns and validating user input, some more complex, like escaping URLs and socket security. I thought the book would teach me best practices about organizing code, as in "do like I do". Instead it goes like "don't do like I'm telling you".

(2) Using Windows security APIs. This is THE BEST part of the book. Gives you a very good overview about several different APIs, including ACLs, protecting sensitive data, securing DCOM and .NET code, excellent tips on installing programs etc. etc.

Keep in mind that this book is said to be used internally within Microsoft with "security pushes", with the audience of 8000 people, including not only developers of all levels, but managers as well, therefore the book is by definition a high level overview.

Sometimes the book feels like MS educational course. Ex. (tip on p.77) "I created the ... diagrams ... using ... Microsoft Visio Professional 2002". That's cool, but what does it have to do with security ?

Some topics should never be there. How about 3 pages of tips for a kernel driver writer ? It's a huge topic in itself and how many readers outside MS do this anyway ? Privacy issues are covered idealistically. Yeah, sure, if you put a specially crafted XML to the special place on your site, the users magically start trusting you... I'd better read about real situation with privacy, not how the government rules it to be. Oh, and how about 40 pages about cryptography ? Please...

The book tries to show you the security process with development and testing.... I can easily see they use this process in Microsoft, with 8000 people. For a small team it's completely useless. How about using 4 (!) people for a code review ? Sure, upon reading this book you will know that security code review is a must (if you have enough resources). Didn't you know that before ?

The code samples are ugly. How about this: "... X is cool ... several pages of Perl (!) ... see what I mean ?". Ok, one of the authors admits to be a Perl fan, but how am I supposed to read through all this gibberish ? C(++) samples are not much better. May be they are fully functional and compilable and all, but please, they are huge and inconsistent in themselves.

All in all, 5 stars for Microsoft, 3 stars for the rest of the world. Read more ›

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book if you're serious about writing secure code January 30, 2003

By Leon Zandman

Format:Paperback

I got this book for free from Microsoft, because our company became a Microsoft Partner. I must admit that at first I was a little bit sceptical about it, because afterall this book is published by Microsoft and they have this reputation of selling rather insecure software themselves. But after reading the first few sections I knew it was going to be a very good read.

The book explains in very clear language almost every aspect of secure programming and gives a good overview of all common security flaws that can (and will!) enter your programming code. You'll learn how to securely design, implement, test and deploy your programs. Ofcourse buffer overruns are handled (Public Enemy #1 according to the authors), but that's only the tip of the iceberg. The book does a great job by identifying and providing solutions to common security pitfalls. Topics that are handled include: database access, user privileges and Access Control, Cryptography, handling secret data, user input, encoding and internationalization, RPC, DCOM, DOS attacks, .NET and writing secure program documentation.

I recommend this book to every programmer out there, even if you're not programming for the Win32-platform. Don't let the fact that this is a Microsoft publication refrain you from buying this book. If you are serious about writing secure programs this is the book to get.

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Required readind, not just at MS May 3, 2004

By Markus Egger

Format:Paperback

Every professional developer should read this book, period!

This book provides a great overview of what techniques are important when writing secure applications, and what pitfalls to avoid. The book does a good job at making a point through examples and by explaining possible exploits.

This book tries to cover a lot of ground. Most of the things discussed are for C++ developers. However, most of the things discussed are of general interest no matter what language one develops with.

I found myself wishing that the book covered a bit more about my development environment of choice: Visual Studio .NET. As mentioned above, I found all the content very interesting and applicable, but I think it would be good to have more than one chapter covering .NET specifically. I do realize however, that this book was first written before .NET. Perhaps someone will dedicate a book completely to .NET ("Writing Secure .NET Code" anyone?).

This book provides a solid foundation and teaches developers what to look for. However, the book is written for developers and managers alike and does not cover tons of implementation details. I would recommend this book to everyone as a first book to read about secure application development. It is not the last book people should read however. There are a number of good books available for a variety of environments (including .NET) that discuss specific implementations of various security and privacy techniques. Get several of those books as well!

Bottom line: This is a great book. Developers must read it. No "ifs" and "buts". Once you are done with this one though, get other security books and keep on reading...

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I have read about secure software December 27, 2001

By Mike Brava

Format:Paperback

Too many books talk about how to secure a network, and discuss network-based attacks, but this book is different; it covers how to design, build and test the code at the end of the pipe - the application software.

The book is complete in its explanation of how to make sure your application code, be it web-based or otherwise, is secured from attack.

I learned a great deal from this book, and, based on code and design reviews of my company's code, the authors obviously know what they are talking about - as we made a lot of fixes, and added many new security test cases to our test suites.

Simply put, we never knew we had problems, until we read this book, now it's mandatory reading for all our software engineers.