Created as part of the CNS major and extended major and Mcomms extended major, elective of the Cyber security minor and Sdev major and extended major of the new Bachelor of IT (BInfoTech) degree - 2016 , elective in the BCompSci and BSE(Hons) degrees

Introduced for course architecture programs. Effective semester 1, 2016

12/06/2017: Admin - updating location of offering to reflect actual campus offerings at the ADE's request.

07/12/2017 - Updating prerequisites to include the new programming unit.

24/9/19: Admin - updating the exam duration to include additional 10 minutes as per University requirement.

4/5/2020: As the MSA course 4307 Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences is in teach-out, the MSA offering of this unit has been re-coded to FZA3173 effective Semester 1, 2021. These units will be managed by South Africa and therefore no separate Monatar entries will be made

23/09/2020 Admin: Update to include new assessment and teaching approach fields as per Handbook requirements.

This is one of the units offered in the CNS major of the BinfoTech degree. The unit concentrates on software security. It builds on students' knowledge in software programming. It complements units in other aspects of security: Information and Network Security and IT Forensics. Security is an extremely important part of information technology; the Faculty must retain its role as a leader in IT teaching and research. Software security is now the number one cause of financial losses. Furthermore, this unit is critical to the Faculty's research-teaching nexus; the Faculty has significant research activity in secure/trusted software development.

At the completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. model the possible vulnerabilities and threats for a given application system;
2. apply appropriate methods for the design and realization of secure software;
3. analyse and evaluate security properties of concurrent and networked applications.

029901

This unit aims to introduce secure software development issues from the design stage, through to implementation, testing and deployment. Topics studied include the secure software development life cycle, secure software design principles, threat evaluation models, secure coding and development practices, software security testing, deployment and maintenance. Students are provided with a range of practical exercises and tasks to reinforce their skills including: identification of security bugs in programs written in different programming languages, design, implementation, and testing of secure concurrent and networked applications and identification of vulnerabilities in networked and mobile/wireless applications.

Recommended resources

Textbooks that we will refer to include:

On-campus

Lecture and laboratories or problem classes

Examination (2 hours and 10 minutes): 60%; In-semester assessment: 40%

1. Investigating Buffer Overflow and Using Cryptography Libraries: - 20% - ULO: 1, 2, 3
2. Web Application Vulnerabilities: - 20% - ULO: 1, 2, 3
3. Examination 1: - 60% - ULO: 1, 2, 3

Minimum total expected workload equals 12 hours per week comprising:

(a.) Contact hours for on-campus students:

One of FIT1045, FIT1053, FIT1048 or FIT1051 or equivalent