SBIR-STTR Award

The Structured Application Protection Process (SAPP) system concept classifies software applications into domains. Each domain class represents different operational aspects of software – such as real-time response, data management, compute intensive, and user interactive – to correlates a likelihood of vulnerabilities with an application software type. A threat model is used to correlate attack vectors with vulnerabilities for prioritizing both penetration testing and operational monitoring. The threat model utilizes a standard classification of attack patterns to identify the attack vectors most likely to be used against known vulnerabilities. The correlation of threats with vulnerabilities produces a risk assessment which can be used in the development of a remediation strategy. The proposed project reduces technical risk by leveraging prior research and development and by using standard descriptions of vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and attack patterns. The innovation of the proposed concept is to make as efficient as possible the analysis and implementation of protecting application software.

Keywords:
Vulnerability, Vulnerability Remediation, Penetration Testing, Application Software, Software Protection, Computer Security, Information Assurance

The Structured Application Protection Process (SAPP) system concept classifies software applications into domains. Each domain class represents different operational aspects of software – such as real-time response, data management, computationally-intensive, and user interactive – to correlate a likelihood of vulnerabilities with an application software type. A threat model is used to correlate attack vectors with vulnerabilities for prioritizing both penetration testing and operational monitoring. The threat model utilizes a standard classification of attack patterns to identify the attack vectors most likely to be used against known vulnerabilities. The correlation of threats with vulnerabilities produces a risk assessment which can be used in the development of a penetration testing strategy. The pen testing strategy is then automatically executed to identify likely vulnerabilities and weaknesses and how they may be remediated. The proposed project reduces technical risk by leveraging prior research and development and by using standard descriptions of vulnerabilities (CVE), weaknesses (CWE), and attack patterns (CAPEC). The innovation of the proposed concept is to make as efficient as possible the testing and verification of application software.

Keywords:
Vulnerability, Weakness, Remediation, Penetration Testing, Application Software, Software Protection, Computer Security, Information Assurance