Computer Science, Information Technology and Management, Software Engineering projects for college students

IT Projects for college students

Project: Secure Programming for Application Development

The project requires the security testing of an application that is provided by the lecturer and to provide a fix to the vulnerabilities identified. Students are required to investigate and critically assess the state of the art in the latest programming paradigms to create security controls that prevent common application security vulnerabilities and to place the programming language used for the application provided in this context. Students are required to present the state of the art in security testing, latest solutions, tools, etc. (references should focus on IEEE/ACM peer reviewed papers, but not only) and to use such solutions.

The students should follow the steps outlined below:

– State of the art in the latest programming paradigms – State of the art in security testing – Security testing:

Underline on security issues that arise due to not applying security testing practices that relate to the application’s programming language.

Testing based on latest methodologies as suggested by the state of the art put together by the student. Evidence of such testing, including how the tests were performed and corresponding results, must be presented, analyzed and discussed.

Testing based on the tools/methodologies learnt/familiar to the student. Evidence of such testing, including how the tests were performed and corresponding results, must be presented, analyzed and discussed.

Manual code review. Evidence of such testing must be presented in the report.

Proposed solutions to the security issues discovered. These solutions should relate as much as possible to the analysis of the state of the art in programming languages. The solutions should be comprehensive enough in order to allow an immediate fix of the identified issues.

Compile a report that encompasses all the above. This report, modified code (encompassing the solutions to the encountered security issues) and a demo/presentation are the deliverables of the project.

Proposed Structure for the Project Report

• 1. Introduction/Abstract
• 2. Programming paradigms and Security – state of the art
• 3. Security testing – state of the art
• 4. Testing of the application
• 4.1. Well-known approaches-based testing
• 4.2. Manual Code Review

Use the template provided

4.3. Latest Testing Methodologies-based testing

if you are unable to apply any, make discussions, suggestions, etc.

5. Proposed Solutions

Include here all the proposed solutions, code listing with the fixed code, architectural re-design, etc.

This chapter can be merged into chapter 4 if the student feels it’s easer to present as such (for instance, 4.2 section will contain proposed fixes in the table)

6. Conclusion

• Main conclusions, linkage between security, programming languages, most efficient testing techniques on the basis of the current experience, etc.
• Link to the video presentation will be included here. A video presentation must be done by the student (voice over slides/report) where you emphasis on sections 4, 5 and 6 from the document as described here. Video length 7min to max 10 mins.

Following in-class questions and discussions, this is to summarize few points about the requirements of the project:

• There is no limitation in the number of total pages
• The minimum number of good quality references (journal papers, peer reviewed conferences, white papers) should be 15
• A fair number of pages for the literature review for the 2 main topics would be 6 pages (in a format that you are using for Research in Computing)
• Regarding the testing techniques: the more the better, as discussed in class
• For the Code Review, please use the template given in the Secure Programming for Web project
• Do not copy from each other! – the uniqueness of the issues found, explanations, uniqueness of the solutions will have a considerable weight in the overall mark

Marking scheme:

The investigation and critically assessment of the state of the art in the latest programming paradigms to create security controls that prevent common application security vulnerabilities and to place the application’s programming language in this context (15)

Testing:

• State of the art in security testing, latest solutions/tools/methodologies etc. (12)
• Testing based on latest methodologies as suggested by the state of the art put together by the student (10)
• Testing based on techniques/tools learnt (15)

Manual code review (10)

• Proposed solutions to the security issues encountered (25)
• Linkage between the security issues, programming language/technologies state of the art, and solutions proposed (5)
• Document structure, presentation, organization and overall quality (8)