9 Questions
What is the name of the OpenSSF course that focuses on developing secure software?
Developing Secure Software
What type of testing is often forgotten by test suite developers?
Negative testing
What should be used in combination in a CI/CD pipeline to detect vulnerabilities?
A combination of tools, including Quality scanners and SAST
What is the purpose of the OpenSSF Best Practices Badge & Scorecard?
To provide a project checklist form with some automation
What should be default in software design?
Secure by default
What are attackers trying to do to software developers?
Divert them to the wrong software via typosquatting & dependency confusion attacks
What type of authentication should privileged developers use?
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) tokens
What type of attacks are increasing on open source software?
Supply chain attacks
What is the main consequence if developers do not take precautions when bringing in software from the outside?
Software can be easily attacked and compromised
Study Notes
Software Security Threats
- Software is under attack, and attackers are looking for vulnerabilities to exploit, using techniques like typosquatting and dependency confusion attacks.
- Attackers are also trying to take over developer accounts and insert malicious code into software.
Protecting Developer Accounts
- Ensure all privileged developers use multi-factor authentication (MFA) tokens and do not reuse passwords across sites.
- Attackers are trying to take over privileged accounts.
Secure Software Development
- Learn about secure software development through free courses like "Developing Secure Software" (LFD121) and "Securing Your Software Supply Chain with Sigstore" (LFS182x) from OpenSSF.
- Use a combination of tools in the CI/CD pipeline to detect vulnerabilities, including quality scanners, SAST, secret scanners, SCA/dependency analysis tools, fuzzers, and web application scanners.
Automated Testing
- Implement automated tests, including negative tests that ensure what shouldn't be allowed to happen doesn't happen.
- Ensure the test suite is thorough enough to "ship if it passes the tests".
Evaluating Open Source Software
- Evaluate software before selecting it as a direct dependency.
- Use the OpenSSF Best Practices Badge & Scorecard to evaluate OSS projects.
- Earn an OpenSSF Best Practices badge and improve your Scorecard score.
General Best Practices
- Make sure the software you produce is secure by default.
- Follow design principles, such as least privilege, to ensure secure software development.
- Use a combination of tools and education to detect vulnerabilities, as tools can miss vulnerabilities and are sometimes wrong.
This quiz summarizes key steps for software developers to improve software security, including avoiding vulnerabilities and protecting against attacks. It covers topics such as typosquatting and dependency confusion.
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