Software Assurances Metrics and Tool Evaluation

Published

June 1, 2005

Author(s)

Paul E. Black

Abstract

NIST is starting two ambitious projects to (1) develop a taxonomy of software security flaws and vulnerabilities, (2) develop a taxonomy of software assurance (SA) functions and techniques which detect those flaws, (3) perform and maintain a survey of SA tools implementing the functions, (4) develop testable specifications of SA functions and explicit tests, include a standard reference dataset, to evaluate how closely tools implement the functions, and (5) lead efforts to develop metrics for the effectiveness of those functions. The end result is that users will be able to choose a combination of techniques which best suits their needs and will be able to state how much confidence they have in software which has been assessed. This paper details these two projects and presents our justifications and expectations.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of 2005 International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice

Conference Dates

June 27-30, 2005

Conference Location

Las Vegas, NV

Conference Title

International Conference on Software Engineering

Pub Type

Conferences

Keywords

metrics, reference dataset, security, software assurance

Citation

Black, P. (2005), Software Assurances Metrics and Tool Evaluation, Proceedings of 2005 International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice, Las Vegas, NV (Accessed October 2, 2025)