Designing secure software by testing application of security patterns

Simply confirming potential threats and vulnerabilities in an early stage of the development process (e.g., the requirement or design phase) is insufficient because software developers are not necessarily security experts. Additionally, even if the software design considers security at an early stage, whether the software actually satisfies the security requirements must be confirmed. To realize secure design, the authors propose an application to design software systems with verification of security patterns using model testing. The method provides extended security patterns, which include requirement- and design-level patterns as well as a new designing and model testing process that uses these patterns. Once developers specify threats and vulnerabilities in the target system in an early stage of development, the method can verify whether the security patterns are properly applied and assess if the vulnerabilities are resolved.