In the late 1980s, a buffer overflow in UNIX’s fingerd program allowed Robert T. Morris to create a worm which infected 10% of the Internet—in two days. This event launched cybersecurity to the forefront of computer science headlines for one of the first times in history. Nearly three decades later in 2014, a buffer overflow vulnerability in the OpenSSL cryptography library was disclosed to the public.

The newly released update in early 2024 of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) from 1.1 to 2.0 represents a significant step forward in cybersecurity management and reflects the latest advancements in technology and threat mitigation.

Vulnerability remediation is the process of identifying weaknesses and design flaws in your applications, prioritizing findings based off of the level of risk they pose, and then performing appropriate actions to resolve them. Options for vulnerability remediation include remediating (fixing) an issue, ignoring it (when it is not risky enough to merit the resources needed to fix it), or applying compensating controls to help counteract the risk posed by the vulnerability.

Successful software projects are managed well. To manage a project efficiently, the manager or development team must choose the software development methodology that will work best for the project at hand. All methodologies have different strengths and weaknesses and exist for different reasons. Here’s an overview of the most commonly used software development methodologies and why different methodologies exist.

The Synopsys Cybersecurity Research Center (CyRC) has identified problems in Zephyr OS related to protecting against internet protocol (IP) address spoofing attacks. Zephyr OS is a popular real-time operating system used in connected, resource-constrained systems like Internet of Things and embedded devices. It is highly customizable and supports multiple architectures, systems-on-a-chip, and boards, making it useful for a wide range of applications.

Today, we're excited to announce the availability of fAST Dynamic, the latest offering on the Polaris Software Integrity Platform®. As web applications become more complex, so too does the task of testing them for security issues at the pace of modern development pipelines. Polaris fAST Dynamic simplifies dynamic application security testing (DAST) for modern web applications, while also making it faster and easier for the teams developing them.

Based on the audit data presented in the 2024 “Open Source Security and Risk Analysis” (OSSRA) report, organizations in all verticals should be concerned about the potential risk of litigation or threat to their intellectual property rights due to failure to comply with an open source license. The report’s findings show that over half—53%—of the 2023 audited codebases contained open source with license conflicts.

Python is a fast, platform-agnostic, and easy-to-learn programming language that is suited for beginners and experienced developers alike. Ever since its first release in 1991, Python has had a constant presence in the computer world and has become a go-to language thanks to its easy-to-understand code and versatility. Today, Python can boast a wide array of libraries and frameworks, and they are the cornerstone of fast and easy Python programming—the so-called Pythonic way of development.

To some, native applications are rudimentary. Why write an application specific to one platform when you can build one that is cross-platform compatible? After all, expanding the user base is one of the most fundamental objectives for software development teams. Doing this quickly with the current “build apps for any screen” approach is the obvious choice.

Static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic application security testing (DAST) are testing methodologies that help find security vulnerabilities that could leave an organization’s applications susceptible to attack.

It’s been almost three years since President Biden issued Executive Order 14028, and while we’ve heard vendors talk about “compliance with EO 14028” for about that long, the reality is that industry hasn’t had anything to comply with—until now. On March 11, CISA published the Secure Software Development Attestation Form as part of its obligations under OMB memo M-22-18 and the successor OMB memo M-23-16.

Highlighting the critical need for improved maintenance practices among users of open source software, the new 2024 “Open Source Security and Risk Analysis” (OSSRA) report catalogs security concerns caused by the significant lag many organizations have in keeping the open source components they use up-to-date.

There is enormous attention on generative AI (GenAI) and its potential to change software development. While the full impact of GenAI is yet to be known, organizations are eagerly vetting the technology and separating the hype from the real, pragmatic benefits. In parallel, software security professionals are closely watching the practical impact of GenAI and how application security testing (AST) must adapt as adoption increases.

In late 2023, Synopsys released the “Global State of DevSecOps” report. The report explored crucial topics in the realm of DevSecOps and outlined practical approaches for implementing effective, resilient, and scalable application security (AppSec) approaches. These approaches can help organizations strengthen their AppSec programs in 2024.