Software Assurance Curriculum Project Volume 1: Master of Software Assurance Reference Curriculum

Abstract

The ideas and findings in this report should not be construed as an official DoD position. It is published in the interest of scientific and technical information exchange.

Building Assured Systems Framework

“…In parallel with our work on identifying a framework for building assured systems, we were developing a body of knowledge (BoK) to support a Master of Software Assurance Reference Curriculum (MSwA2010) [Mead 2010]. MSwA2010 was a year-long effort to identify a body of knowledge for software assurance that would support a Master of Software Assurance Reference Curriculum and, ultimately, Master of Software Assurance degree programs.…”

“…With this information, we formed a hypothesis that the recently developed Master of Software Assurance (MSwA2010) body of knowledge (BoK) [Mead 2010] could serve as our starting point for the BASF. This makes sense given that the curriculum BoK draws extensively from more than 25 sources describing methods, practices, and technologies for software assurance and security (including the software security models considered in this report).…”

“…Our work relates to the following definition of software assurance from Software Assurance Curriculum Project Volume I: Master of Software Assurance Reference Curriculum [Mead 2010]:…”

“…Readers who are less interested in this background information can skim it or skip ahead to Section 5. In Section 5, we explore the hypothesis that the recently developed Master of Software Assurance (MSwA2010) body of knowledge (BoK) [Mead 2010] could serve as our starting point for BASF. The curriculum body of knowledge draws extensively from more than 25 sources describing methods, practices, and technologies for software security (including the models described in Section 3).…”

“…If the practice was not very mature, we would still expect the student to be able to master it and use it in an appropriate manner after completing an MSwA program. The following content comes from the Master of Software Assurance Reference Curriculum report [Mead 2010]. …”