Welcome to the Fall 2016 Edition of the CERT Secure Coding Standards eNewsletter!
Another season has passed, and while we had a pleasant and mild start to the season, it's now getting cold in Pittsburgh.
In this newsletter, we highlight some recent and upcoming changes to the wiki accounts and structure, in addition to changes in the guidelines. We also highlight recent and future events that you might be interested in. Many of these events were open to the public, so we have linked to the materials in case you were unable to attend.
We hope you find this information useful. As we prepare to finish this year and get ready for the next, let us know your thoughts about our work and send us any challenges you think we should address.
Thanks,
Bob Schiela
SEI CERT Standard Publications
Secure Coding Wiki Changes to Registered Accounts
There are some dormant accounts on the wiki. To more efficiently manage our site license, in early January 2017, we will disable accounts that have not been active (i.e., at least logged in) within the last 180 days. We will also disable accounts that were created more than 30 days ago if the user has not yet logged into it.
We will retain user history, contributions, and comments with attribution even after the accounts are disabled. However, users will no longer be able to log in unless they contact us to reactivate their account.
We will continue this policy moving forward and disable accounts that haven't been used in 180 days or that were created where the user did not log into it for more than 30 days.
We will also require that all registered accounts contain a valid email addresses in the user's profile. We will begin disabling accounts that do not have valid email addresses starting 1 July 2017 (following the initial 180 day window for inactive accounts).
Secure Coding Wiki Changes to Structure
Each language section now has a "Related Guidelines" summary page for each related coding standard (e.g., MISRA, MITRE CWE). These pages list the relationships that exist between CERT rules/recommendations and guidelines in external coding standards. These pages are automatically generated from the individual rule/recommendation pages.
Each language section now has a "Risk Assessments" summary page that displays all rule/recommendation risk assessments for the language. These pages are automatically generated from the individual rule/recommendation pages.
We also developed
guidelines for those who contribute content to the wiki, such as tool vendors that add mappings to rules.
Bob Schiela and the Software Engineering Institute hosted the CERT Secure Coding Symposium on 8 September 2016 in Washington, DC.
David Svoboda alsogave the following presentations at
JavaOne 2016 in September:
CERT, the Software Engineering Institute, and Carnegie Mellon University hosted the
ISO/IEC WG14/PL22.11 C Standard meeting in Pittsburgh on 17-21 October 2016. Several members of our team participated, including Dan Plakosh, Aaron Ballman, and David Svoboda.
Lori Flynn chaired the SPLASH co-hosted workshop,
Mobile! 2016, which took place on 31 October 2016 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Mark Sherman presented Experiences Developing an IBM Watson Cognitive Processing Application to Support Q&A of Application Security (Software Assurance) Diagnostics
(co-authored with Lori Flynn and Chris Alberts) at the AAAI 2016 Fall Symposium on 18 November 2016.
Bob Schiela will present at the Software Assurance Community of Practice (SwA CoP) meeting in early December.
We plan to release the SEI CERT C++ Coding Standard in the next couple of months. Watch for our notices.
David Svoboda will give a Secure Coding Tutorial at the
Software Solutions Symposium 2017, in Arlington, VA on
March 2017, where other software engineering and security presentations and hands-on tutorials will be given. Topics include machine learning and software engineering, security engineering risk analysis, requirements elicitation, and software supply chain risk management. Registration is now open.
SEI CERT Secure Coding Standard Updates
CERT C Coding Standard
Editors: Aaron Ballman, SEI/CERT
David Svoboda, SEI/CERT
No C rules were added or removed.
Changed
- FIO21-C. Do not create temporary files in shared directories
First, the severity is now Medium, as there seems to be no way to achieve privilege escalation or remote code execution through misuse of temporary files. Second, the tmpfile() entry now indicates that this system call can create files with reduced permissions, as indicated by POSIX.1-2008.
- FLP30-C. Do not use floating-point variables as loop counters
Clarified the meaning of "loop counter"; corrected typo with a floating-point literal last compliant solution.
- DCL38-C. Use the correct syntax when declaring a flexible array member
Discussed a compiler extension as though it were a standard feature; removed mention of the compiler extension.
- STR34-C. Cast characters to unsigned char before converting to larger integer sizes
Corrected an off-by-one error with the size of the array declared for the second noncompliant & compliant code pair.
- FIO41-C. Do not call getc(), putc(), getwc(), or putwc() with a stream argument that has side effects
Corrected a typo with a noncompliant code example where the code was missing a closing parenthesis.
- FIO45-C. Avoid TOCTOU race conditions while accessing files
Corrected a typo in a compliant solution where a semicolon was missing.
- The "Expanding Buffer" solution in FIO20-C. Avoid unintentional truncation when using fgets() or fgetws() has several fixes: First, it prevents integer wrapping on the input size. Second, it avoids subtracting two null pointers. Finally, it uses
strcpy() rather than stract() which would have undefined behavior when trying to concatenate to the initial buffer, as it is uninitialized.
New Clang Checkers
CERT C++ Secure Coding Standard
Editors: Aaron Ballman, SEI/CERT
David Svoboda, SEI/CERT
No C++ rules were added.
Changed
Due to the upcoming initial publication of the SEI CERT C++ Coding Standard 2017 Edition, several rules were renumbered to remove gaps in the rule titles for a chapter.
- INT50-CPP. Do not cast to an out-of-range enumeration value
Reworded the first compliant solution to more clearly express the difference between it and the noncompliant code example. Also, clarified the risk assessment section.
- STR51-CPP. Do not attempt to create a std::string from a null pointer
Clarified the title, performed minor wordsmithing on normative rule text. Was previously called STR51-CPP. Do not pass a null pointer to char_traits::length().
- EXP51-CPP. Do not delete an array through a pointer of the incorrect type
Fixed the Risk Assessment section, removed superfluous code from the noncompliant code example/CS pair.
- EXP52-CPP. Do not rely on side effects in unevaluated operands
Called out the fact that the first exception to this rule still requires the programmer to comply with PRE31-C. Avoid side effects in arguments to unsafe macros.
- EXP50-CPP. Do not depend on the order of evaluation for side effects
Added an additional noncompliant & compliant code pair demonstrating the order of evaluation for overloaded operators.
- ERR58-CPP. Handle all exceptions thrown before main() begins executing
Clarified the intent of the rule to cover exceptions being thrown that cannot be caught by main() . Now allowing static or thread-local objects to be declared at function block scope, since exceptions thrown from constructors of such objects can still be caught. Added a new noncompliant code example/CS pair, and a new CS to an existing noncompliant code example/CS pair. Changed the title of the rule; was previously called ERR58-CPP. Constructors of objects with static or thread storage duration must not throw exceptions.
- EXP57-CPP. Do not cast or delete pointers to incomplete classes
Used dynamic_cast in the last CS, rather than static_cast .
- EXP60-CPP. Do not pass a nonstandard-layout type object across execution boundaries
Clarified some explanatory text, and removed an incorrect noncompliant & compliant code pair that was better expressed in another rule.
- EXP62-CPP. Do not access the bits of an object representation that are not part of the object's value representation
Added a noncompliant & code pair that used to live in EXP60-CPP. Do not pass a nonstandard-layout type object across execution boundaries. Also, clarified the wording of the exception to better define what access means and fixed a mistake in the introductory text regarding object representations.
- OOP57-CPP. Prefer special member functions and overloaded operators to C Standard Library functions
Clarified a code example and added a cross reference.
- MEM51-CPP. Properly deallocate dynamically allocated resources
Added entries to the table of paired allocation & deallocation functions for class-specific overloads of operator new and operator delete (and the array forms).
- FIO51-CPP. Close files when they are no longer needed
Added a new compliant solution, and called out the code example's relationship to ERR50-CPP. Do not abruptly terminate the program.
- ERR50-CPP. Do not abruptly terminate the program
Added std::quick_exit() to the list of function calls to avoid. Also, changed a bulleted list into a numbered list and clarified that calling std::exit() is acceptable.
- ERR56-CPP. Guarantee exception safety
The compliant solution now copies the correct number of elements from the source object.
- OOP52-CPP. Do not delete a polymorphic object without a virtual destructor
Changed the title to say "delete" rather than "destroy" and added another noncompliant code example showing that smart pointers also suffer from the same problem.
- CON54-CPP. Wrap functions that can spuriously wake up in a loop
Corrected the predicate logic in the noncompliant code example/CS pair.
- DCL58-CPP. Do not modify the standard namespaces
Moved from the MSC section to the DCL section; was previously called MSC53-CPP. Do not modify the standard namespaces. Added another compliant solution which demonstrates one situation where you are allowed to modify the standard namespace.
- OOP54-CPP. Gracefully handle self-copy assignment
Removed mention about self-move assignment, making the rule only address self-copy assignment. There are questions as to whether self-move assignment truly leads to security or correctness concerns, especially given that the STL does not prohibit the behavior.
- OOP58-CPP. Copy operations must not mutate the source object
Changed the title to more clearly state the intent of the rule; was previously called OOP58-CPP. Copy operations must mutate only the destination of the copy.
- CON51-CPP. Ensure actively held locks are released on exceptional conditions
Added explanatory text describing some of the differences between the various locking helper classes.
- DCL60-CPP. Obey the one-definition rule
Moved from the MSC section to the DCL section; was previously called MSC52-CPP. Obey the One-Definition Rule.
- ERR53-CPP. Do not reference base classes or class data members in a constructor or destructor function-try-block handler
Removed the noncompliant & compliant code pair showing a function-try-block in the destructor; the noncompliant code example was far-fetched, and the lack of a conforming compliant solution made the exposition unenlightening.
- MSC54-CPP. A signal handler must be a plain old function
Updated the last compliant solution to demonstrate a reasonable way to improve the noncompliant code example.
- ERR57-CPP. Do not leak resources when handling exceptions
Corrected the exception handler comments in the first set of noncompliant & compliant code pairs..
- CTR55-CPP. Do not use an additive operator on an iterator if the result would overflow
Removed a faulty noncompliant & compliant code pair.
Removed
New Clang Checkers
CERT Oracle Secure Coding Standard for Java
Editor: David Svoboda, SEI/CERT
No Java rules were added or removed.
Changed
CERT Secure Coding Standard for Android
Editor:
Lori Flynn, SEI/CERT
No Android rules were added, removed, deprecated, or substantively changed.
CERT Perl Secure Coding Standard
Editor: David Svoboda, SEI/CERT
No Perl rules were added, removed, deprecated, or substantively changed.
Our People
In the enewsletter, we highlight the staff members behind our secure coding research. In this issue we feature
Dr. Lori Flynn.
Dr. Lori Flynn is a software security researcher at the CERT Division of Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute. Her research focuses on automating analysis of software for security. Prior to joining the SEI, she co-invented a patented static analysis method to create signatures for polymorphic viruses. Flynn is part of the CERT team that developed
DidFail, the first static taint flow analyzer for Android app sets, and she is currently working on a research project that will increase its precision while retaining its speed. She also leads a research project working to accurately and automatically classify and prioritize alerts from code analysis tools.
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