The Security Development Lifecycle (Paperback)

by Michael Howard (Author), Steve Lipner (Author) "The adage "Necessity is the mother of invention" sums up the birth of the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) at Microsoft..." (more)
Key Phrases: Pet Shop, Microsoft Windows, Windows Server (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The software industry has been struggling with how to create and release software that is more security-enhanced and reliable— the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) provides a methodology that works. Adapted from Microsoft’s standard development process, SDL is a critical way to help reduce the number of security defects in code at every stage of the development process, from design to release. In addition to a brief history of the methodology, this book details each stage of the SDL methodology and discusses its implementation across a range of Microsoft software, including Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003, Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1, to help measurably improve security features. Coauthored by Michael Howard and Steve Lipner, you get direct access to insights from Microsoft’s security team and lessons that are repeatable and applicable to software development processes worldwide, whether on a small-scale or large-scale. This book includes a CD featuring videos of developer training classes.

From the Publisher
The software industry is clamoring to learn more about the SDL methodology. With insights direct from Microsoft’s security team, where these techniques have been developed and proven to help reduce code defects, this book premieres SDL to a worldwide audience and is the first to detail the methodology stage by stage.

Key Book Benefits:

• Delivers practical, proven advice from the experts for minimizing security-related code defects

• Details a methodology that can be applied to any development process, with outstanding results

• Includes a CD-ROM with video training classes for developers conducted by coauthor Michael Howard, a security program manager at Microsoft

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (June 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735622140
• ISBN-13: 978-0735622142
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #305,578 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Glad to read Microsoft's contribution to the process of developing secure code, November 1, 2006

By	Richard Bejtlich "TaoSecurity.com" (Metro Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I read six books on software security recently, namely "Writing Secure Code, 2nd Ed" by Michael Howard and David LeBlanc; "19 Deadly Sins of Software Security" by Michael Howard, David LeBlanc, and John Viega; "Software Security" by Gary McGraw; "The Security Development Lifecycle" by Michael Howard and Steve Lipner; "High-Assurance Design" by Cliff Berg; and "Security Patterns" by Markus Schumacher, et al. Each book takes a different approach to the software security problem, although the first two focus on coding bugs and flaws; the second two examine development processes; and the last two discuss practices or patterns for improved design and implementation. My favorite of the six is Gary McGraw's, thanks to his clear thinking and logical analysis. The other five are still noteworthy books. All six will contribute to the production of more security software.

"Security Development Lifecycle" (SDL) is unique because in many ways it exposes the guts of Microsoft's product development process. I cannot recall seeing another technical company share so much of its internal procedures with the public. One of the most interesting aspects of SDL is the attention paid to security after a product is shipped. No one at Microsoft breathes a sigh of relief when boxes appear on store shelves. Instead, Microsoft explains how it conducts security response planning in ch 15 and security response execution in ch 17. (Between the two is ch 16 -- only 3/4 of a page! Why bother?)

Although I liked SDL overall (enough to justify 4 stars), I thought it suffered three major problems. First, I don't think the audience was defined properly. p xviii mentions "managers" as the primary target, along with architects and designers. Specifically, "this is not a book for developers." Yet, ch 12 ("Secure Testing Policies") is definitely for programmers. A manager probably not going to know what a "null pointer dereference" is; at the very least that is not a subject that should be discussed in a book for managers.

Second, I think SDL suffers a little too much overlap with the earlier Microsoft book "Writing Secure Code, 2nd Ed." WSC2E addressed writing documentation, security testing ,and obviously secure coding in much the same language as repeated in SDL. Sometimes repetition is justified, but perhaps those subjects appeared in WSC2E for a reason and did not belong in a book for managers.

Third, and most importantly, Microsoft continues its pattern of misusing terms like "threat" that started with "Threat Modeling" and WSC2E. SDL demonstrates some movement on the part of the book's authors towards more acceptable usage, however. Material previously discussed in a "Threat Modeling" chapter in WSC2E now appears in a chapter called "Risk Analysis" (ch 9) -- but within the chapter, the terms are mostly still corrupted. Many times Microsoft misuses the term risk too. For example, p 94 says "The Security Risk Assessment is used to determine the system's level of vulnerability to attack." If you're making that decision, it's a vulnerability assessment; when you incorporate threat and asset value calculations with vulnerabilities, that's true risk assessment.

The authors try to deflect what I expect was criticism of their term misuse in previous books. On p 102 they say "The meaning of the word threat is much debated. In this book, a threat is defined as an attacker's objective." The problem with this definition is that it exposes the problems with their terminology. The authors make me cringe when I read phrases like "threats to the system ranked by risk" (p 103) or "spoofing threats risk ranking." On p 104, they are really talking about vulnerabilities when they write "All threats are uncovered through the analysis process." The one time they do use threat properly, it shows their definition is nonsensical: "consider the insider-threat scenario -- should your product protect against attackers who work for your company?" If you recognize that a threat is a party with the capabilities and intentions to exploit a vulnerability in an asset, then Microsoft is describing insiders appropriately -- but not as "an attacker's objective."

Don't get me wrong -- there's a lot to like about SDL. I gave the book four stars, and I think it would be good to read it. I fear, though, that this is another book distributed to Microsoft developers and managers riddled with sometimes confusing or outright wrong ways to think about security. This produces lasting problems that degrade the community's ability to discuss and solve software security problems. I also question the implication that SDL is great and everything else doesn't produce verified security improvements. I can understand denigrating Linux, but is Microsoft afraid to acknowledge the security record of an OS like OpenBSD?

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not great, September 8, 2006

By	Alexander T. Barclay "Reiger" (Oklahoma) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have been very impressed with other offerings from the Microsoft professional series and was excited when this book was released. This is not a technical book like "Writing Secure Code" and "Code Complete" but a book aimed at managers responsible for software projects. My opinion is not based on real world experience of large software projects, but on academic projects smaller in scale than those of Microsoft.

The introductory material is weak, part 1 which explores the reasoning and history behind the SLD seemed to be stretched needlessly, repeating the same information multiple times. Chapter 4 which provides the management impact of the SDL lacks focus, and does not justify the need (ROI) for the SDL.

Part 2 goes though each step of the SDL in detail. Overall, this section is more polished and for the most part does a good job of covering each domain in detail. While this book is focused on managerial and operational activities, there are times where it awkwardly delves into specific technical details. Chapter 10 (Documents, Tools, Practices for customers) and chapter 15 (Response planning) are strong chapters which most everyone can lean from.

Part 3 is a series of reference materials. Chapter 20 (Crypto) and 21 (Compiler Options) are good guidelines to compare your organizations own practices against.

Strengths:
+ Talks about a real methodology being used at MS everyday
+ Excellent references, cites many foundation papers
+ Gives the reasoning behind many decisions in development in SDL
+ Good discussion of threat trees
+ Managerial focused chapters are well thought out and complete

Weaknesses:
- Technical information is MS focused
- Might be acronym heavy for non-technical/security managers
- Does not reference other secure development processes, such as IATF section 3
- Does not reference NIST 800 series for risk analysis

What I would like to see:
*Expanded Chapter 5 (Education and Awareness), giving more information on the curriculum of security classes offered.

*Better balance between the technical and managerial aspects of the SDL. This book would be stellar either with more technical information (platform independent) or by focusing the book more on managerial aspects of the SDL.

*The actual SDL documents being used at MS

Overall, this is a good book, I would recommend it. However I do think a second edition would help this book immensely.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Managerial View of the Microsoft Approach to Security, September 26, 2006

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As is well known, Microsoft software has been known in the past for producing software that had numerous problems in the security area. It finally became so obvious that the company was forced to make a major change in emphasis regarding the security holes in their products.

Microsoft is, of course, a huge software development organization. To move the organization into writing more secure code it was necessary to develop plans, procedures, classes for managers and programmer and the like to implement writing more secure code. The resulting effort is called the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL).

The results of implementing SDL are summarized in the Introduction to the book. Here are two newspaper headlines quoted there:

Gartner Recommends Against Microsoft IIS (eWeek, 2001)
We actually consider Microsoft to be leading the software industry now in improvements in their security development life cycle (CRN 2006)

This book is aimed at the people managing and defining software projects. It does not contain very many specific code examples that would appeal to the developer. This is not to say that developers shouldn't read it, but that it is not a detailed techie document.

The CD that comes with the book includes several documents that extend the concepts talked about in the book and a six part security class video conducted by the authors.

One note of caution. This book is on the Microsoft approach to security. It's what they are doing. It works for them. But there are also other approaches such as that being implemented by organizations such as the US Government.