Get in Touch

Course Outline

Day 1

IT Security and Secure Coding

  • The nature of security
  • Terminology related to IT security
  • Defining risk
  • Various dimensions of IT security
  • Requirements for different application domains
  • Distinguishing between IT security and secure coding
  • From vulnerabilities to botnets and cybercrime
    • Characteristics of security flaws
    • Factors contributing to complexity
    • Progression from infected systems to targeted attacks
  • Categorization of security flaws
    • Landwehr’s taxonomy
    • The Seven Pernicious Kingdoms
    • OWASP Top Ten 2013
    • Comparison of OWASP Top Ten 2003 – 2013

Introduction to the Microsoft® Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)

  • Agenda
  • Applications facing attacks...
    • Evolution of cybercrime
    • Shift in attack focus toward applications
    • Predominance of vulnerabilities in smaller ISV applications
  • Origins of the Microsoft SDL...
    • Microsoft’s security timeline...
    • Applications required to adhere to SDL
  • Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)
    • Overview of the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)
    • Pre-SDL Requirements: Security Training
    • Phase One: Requirements
    • Phase Two: Design
    • Phase Three: Implementation
    • Phase Four: Verification
    • Phase Five: Release – Response Plan
    • Phase Five: Release – Final Security Review
    • Phase Five: Release – Archive
    • Post-SDL Requirement: Response
    • SDL Process Guidance for Line of Business (LOB) Applications
    • SDL Guidance for Agile Methodologies
    • The role of process improvement in secure software development

Secure Design Principles

  • Attack Surface
    • Reducing the attack surface
    • Attack surface – illustrative example
    • Attack surface analysis
    • Attack surface reduction – examples
  • Privacy
    • Privacy considerations
    • Understanding application behaviors and concerns
  • Defense in Depth
    • SDL Core Principle: Defense in Depth
    • Defense in depth – example
  • Least Privilege Principle
    • Least privilege – example
  • Secure Defaults
    • Secure defaults – examples

Secure Implementation Principles

  • Agenda
  • Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)
  • Fundamentals of buffer overflows
    • Intel 80x86 Processors – main registers
    • Memory address layout
    • Function calling mechanism in C/C++ on x86
    • Local variables and stack frames
    • Stack overflow
      • Buffer overflow on the stack
      • Exercises – introduction
      • Exercise BOFIntro
      • Exercise BOFIntro – determining stack layout
      • Exercise BOFIntro – a simple exploit
  • Input Validation
    • Concepts in input validation
    • Integer issues
      • Representation of negative integers
      • Integer overflow
      • Arithmetic overflow – guessing the output
      • Exercise IntOverflow
      • Determining the value of Math.Abs(int.MinValue)
    • Mitigating integer issues
      • Strategies for integer problem mitigation
      • Preventing arithmetic overflow – addition
      • Preventing arithmetic overflow – multiplication
      • Detecting overflow using the checked keyword in C#
      • Exercise – Utilizing the checked keyword in C#
      • Exceptions triggered by overflows in C#
    • Case study – Integer overflow in .NET
      • Real-world integer overflow vulnerability
      • Exploiting the integer overflow vulnerability
    • Path traversal vulnerability
      • Mitigating path traversal

Day 2

Secure Implementation Principles

  • Injection Attacks
    • Common SQL Injection attack methods
    • Blind and time-based SQL injection
    • SQL Injection protection strategies
    • Command injection
  • Broken Authentication and Password Management
    • Exercise – Weaknesses of hashed passwords
    • Password management and storage practices
    • Specialized hash algorithms for password storage
  • Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
    • Overview of Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
    • CSS injection
    • Exploitation: injection via other HTML tags
    • XSS prevention techniques
  • Lack of Function Level Access Control
    • Filtering file uploads
  • Practical Cryptography
    • Ensuring confidentiality with symmetric cryptography
    • Symmetric encryption algorithms
    • Block ciphers – modes of operation
    • Hashing or message digests
    • Hash algorithms
    • Message Authentication Code (MAC)
    • Ensuring integrity and authenticity with symmetric keys
    • Ensuring confidentiality with public-key encryption
    • Rule of thumb – possession of private keys
    • Common errors in password management
    • Exercise – Hard-coded passwords
    • Summary

Secure Verification Principles

  • Functional testing vs. security testing
  • Security vulnerabilities
  • Prioritization
  • Security testing within the SDLC
  • Steps in test planning (risk analysis)
  • Scoping and information gathering
    • Stakeholders
    • Assets
    • The attack surface
    • Security objectives for testing
  • Threat Modeling
    • Overview of threat modeling
    • Attacker profiles
    • Threat modeling using attack trees
    • Threat modeling based on misuse/abuse cases
    • Misuse/abuse cases – simple web shop example
    • STRIDE per element approach to threat modeling – MS SDL
    • Identifying security objectives
    • Diagramming – examples of DFD elements
    • Data flow diagram – example
    • Threat enumeration – MS SDL’s STRIDE and DFD elements
    • Risk analysis – classifying threats
    • The DREAD threat/risk ranking model
  • Security Testing Techniques and Tools
    • General testing approaches
    • Techniques for various SDLC stages
  • Code Review
    • Code review for software security
    • Taint analysis
    • Heuristics
  • Static Code Analysis
    • Overview of static code analysis
    • Exercise – Using static code analysis tools
  • Testing the Implementation
    • Manual run-time verification
    • Manual vs. automated security testing
    • Penetration testing
    • Stress tests
  • Fuzzing
    • Automated security testing - fuzzing
    • Challenges in fuzzing
  • Web Vulnerability Scanners
    • Exercise – Using a vulnerability scanner
  • Checking and Hardening the Environment
    • Common Vulnerability Scoring System – CVSS
    • Vulnerability scanners
    • Public databases
  • Case study – Forms Authentication Bypass
    • NULL byte termination vulnerability
    • The Forms Authentication Bypass vulnerability in code
    • Exploiting the Forms Authentication Bypass

Knowledge Sources

  • Secure coding sources – starter kit
  • Vulnerability databases
  • .NET secure coding guidelines on MSDN
  • .NET secure coding cheat sheets
  • Recommended books – .NET and ASP.NET
 14 Hours

Number of participants


Price per participant

Testimonials (3)

Upcoming Courses

Related Categories