Microsoft SDL Core Training Course

Day 1

IT Security and Secure Coding

• The nature of security
• Key terms in IT security
• Defining risk
• Various dimensions of IT security
• Security requirements for different application domains
• IT security versus secure coding
• From vulnerabilities to botnets and cybercrime
  • The nature of security flaws
  • Challenges in addressing them
  • From infected systems to targeted attacks
• Classification of security flaws
  • Landwehr’s taxonomy
  • The Seven Pernicious Kingdoms
  • OWASP Top Ten 2013
  • Comparison of OWASP Top Ten: 2003 vs 2013

Introduction to the Microsoft® Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)

• Course agenda
• Applications under attack...
  • The evolution of cybercrime
  • The focus of attacks shifting to applications
  • Prevalence of vulnerabilities in smaller ISV applications
• Origins of the Microsoft SDL...
  • Microsoft’s security timeline...
  • Applications mandated to follow SDL
• Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)
  • Overview of the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)
  • Pre-SDL Requirement: 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) Apps
  • SDL Guidance for Agile Methodologies
  • Process improvement as a requirement for secure software development

Secure Design Principles

• Attack surface
  • Reducing the attack surface
  • Attack surface – illustrative example
  • Analyzing the attack surface
  • Examples of attack surface reduction
• Privacy
  • Privacy considerations
  • Understanding application behaviors and privacy concerns
• Defense in depth
  • Core SDL Principle: Defense In Depth
  • Defense in depth – illustrative example
• Principle of least privilege
  • Least privilege – illustrative example
• Secure defaults
  • Secure defaults – illustrative examples

Secure Implementation Principles

• Session agenda
• Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)
• Fundamentals of buffer overflows
  • Intel 80x86 Processors – primary registers
  • Memory address layout
  • Function calling mechanisms in C/C++ on x86
  • Local variables and the stack frame
  • Stack overflow
    • Buffer overflow on the stack
    • Exercises – Introduction
    • Exercise BOFIntro
    • Exercise BOFIntro – Determining the stack layout
    • Exercise BOFIntro – A simple exploit
• Input validation
  • Concepts of input validation
  • Integer issues
    • Representation of negative integers
    • Integer overflow
    • Arithmetic overflow – Guess the output!
    • Exercise IntOverflow
    • Evaluating the value of Math.Abs(int.MinValue)?
  • Mitigating integer issues
    • Strategies for mitigating integer issues
    • Preventing arithmetic overflow – Addition
    • Preventing arithmetic overflow – Multiplication
    • Detecting overflow using the checked keyword in C#
    • Exercise – Using the checked keyword in C#
    • Exceptions triggered by overflows in C#
  • Case study – Integer overflow in .NET
    • A 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 techniques
  • Blind and time-based SQL injection
  • Methods for protecting against SQL Injection
  • Command injection
• Broken authentication – password management
  • Exercise – Weaknesses of hashed passwords
  • Password management and storage practices
  • Specialized hash algorithms for password storage
• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
  • Understanding Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
  • CSS injection
  • Exploitation: Injection via other HTML tags
  • Preventing XSS
• Lack of function-level access control
  • Filtering file uploads
• Practical cryptography
  • Ensuring confidentiality with symmetric cryptography
  • Symmetric encryption algorithms
  • Block ciphers – Modes of operation
  • Hashes or message digests
  • Hash algorithms
  • Message Authentication Code (MAC)
  • Ensuring integrity and authenticity using a symmetric key
  • Ensuring confidentiality with public-key encryption
  • Best practice – Possession of the private key
  • Common errors in password management
  • Exercise – Hard-coded passwords
  • Key takeaways

Secure Verification Principles

• Functional testing versus security testing
• Security vulnerabilities
• Prioritization strategies
• Integrating security testing into the SDLC
• Steps in test planning (risk analysis)
• Defining scope and gathering information
  • 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 – A 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 – Classification of threats
  • The DREAD threat/risk ranking model
• Security testing techniques and tools
  • General testing approaches
  • Techniques applicable to various SDLC stages
• Code review
  • Code review for software security
  • Taint analysis
  • Heuristics
• Static code analysis
  • Introduction to static code analysis
  • Exercise – Using static code analysis tools
• Testing the implementation
  • Manual run-time verification
  • Manual versus automated security testing
  • Penetration testing
  • Stress testing
• Fuzzing
  • Automated security testing via fuzzing
  • Challenges associated with 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 Resources

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