To Be A Developer Or Not To Be

When a thread is scheduled for execution it can go through several states, including unstarted, alive, sleeping, etc. The Thread class contains methods that allow you to start, stop, resume, abort, suspend, and join (wait for) a thread. We can find the current state of the thread using its ThreadState property, which will be one of the values specified in the ThreadState enumeration:

• Aborted – The thread is in the stopped state, but did not necessarily complete execution

• AbortRequested – The Abort() method has been called but the thread has not yet received the System.Threading.ThreadAbortexception that will try to terminate it – the thread is not stopped but soon will be.

• Background – The thread is being executed in the background

• Running – The thread has started and is not blocked

• Stopped – The thread has completed all its instructions, and stopped

• StopRequested – The thread is being requested to stop

• Suspended – The thread has been suspended

• SuspendRequested – The thread is being requested to suspend

• Unstarted – The Start() method has not yet been called on the thread

• WaitSleepJoin – The thread has been blocked by a call to Wait(), Sleep(), or Join()

Top 10 Secure Coding Practices

Added by Robert Seacord on Jun 21, 2007

1. Validate input. Validate input from all untrusted data sources. Proper input validation can eliminate the vast majority of software vulnerabilities. Be suspicious of most external data sources, including command line arguments, network interfaces, environmental variables, and user controlled files [Seacord 05].
2. Heed compiler warnings. Compile code using the highest warning level available for your compiler and eliminate warnings by modifying the code [C MSC00-A, C++ MSC00-A].
3. Architect and design for security policies. Create a software architecture and design your software to implement and enforce security policies. For example, if your system requires different privileges at different times, consider dividing the system into distinct intercommunicating subsystems, each with an appropriate privilege set.
4. Keep it simple. Keep the design as simple and small as possible [Saltzer 74, Saltzer 75]. Complex designs increase the likelihood that errors will be made in their implementation, configuration, and use. Additionally, the effort required to achieve an appropriate level of assurance increases dramatically as security mechanisms become more complex.
5. Default deny. Base access decisions on permission rather than exclusion. This means that, by default, access is denied and the protection scheme identifies conditions under which access is permitted [Saltzer 74, Saltzer 75].
6. Adhere to the principle of least privilege. Every process should execute with the the least set of privileges necessary to complete the job. Any elevated permission should be held for a minimum time. This approach reduces the opportunities an attacker has to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges [Saltzer 74, Saltzer 75].
7. Sanitize data sent to other systems. Sanitize all data passed to complex subsystems [C STR02-A] such as command shells, relational databases, and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. Attackers may be able to invoke unused functionality in these components through the use of SQL, command, or other injection attacks. This is not necessarily an input validation problem because the complex subsystem being invoked does not understand the context in which the call is made. Because the calling process understands the context, it is responsible for sanitizing the data before invoking the subsystem.
8. Practice defense in depth. Manage risk with multiple defensive strategies, so that if one layer of defense turns out to be inadequate, another layer of defense can prevent a security flaw from becoming an exploitable vulnerability and/or limit the consequences of a successful exploit. For example, combining secure programming techniques with secure runtime environments should reduce the likelihood that vulnerabilities remaining in the code at deployment time can be exploited in the operational environment [Seacord 05].
9. Use effective quality assurance techniques. Good quality assurance techniques can be effective in identifying and eliminating vulnerabilities. Penetration testing, fuzz testing, and source code audits should all be incorporated as part of an effective quality assurance program. Independent security reviews can lead to more secure systems. External reviewers bring an independent perspective; for example, in identifying and correcting invalid assumptions [Seacord 05].
10. Adopt a secure coding standard. Develop and/or apply a secure coding standard for your target development language and platform.

Bonus Secure Coding Practices

1. Define security requirements. Identify and document security requirements early in the development life cycle and make sure that subsequent development artifacts are evaluated for compliance with those requirements. When security requirements are not defined, the security of the resulting system cannot be effectively evaluated.
2. Model threats. Use threat modeling to anticipate the threats to which the software will be subjected. Threat modeling involves identifying key assets, decomposing the application, identifying and categorizing the threats to each asset or component, rating the threats based on a risk ranking, and then developing threat mitigation strategies that are implemented in designs, code, and test cases [Swiderski 04].

Bonus Photograph

I found the following photograph on the Web, and I’m still trying to figure out who owns the rights to it. If you know, please comment below.

I like this photograph because it illustrates how the easiest way to break system security is often to circumvent it rather than defeat it (as is the case with most software vulnerabilities related to insecure coding practices).

References

[Saltzer 74] Saltzer, J. H. “Protection and the Control of Information Sharing in Multics.” Communications of the ACM 17, 7 (July 1974): 388-402.

[Saltzer 75] Saltzer, J. H. & Schroeder, M. D. “The Protection of Information in Computer Systems.” Proceedings of the IEEE 63, 9 (September 1975), 1278-1308.

[Seacord 05] Seacord, R. Secure Coding in C and C++. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2006 (ISBN 0321335724).

[Swiderski 04] Swiderski, F. & Snyder, W. Threat Modeling. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 2004.

by Rick Strahl

What’s covered:

• Introduction to Subversion
• Installation
• Adding Projects and Files to Source Control
• Creating a local Copy from the Repository
• Up and Running with Subversion and Tortoise SVN
• Subversion and Visual Studio

This document describes the steps to install and configure Subversion, create a new repository and then walks through the basic steps required to set up local Visual Studio projects using Tortoise SVN.

This isn’t meant to be an all comprehensive tutorial on Subversion, but rather a quick step by step of the essential things to install and configure to get up and running. For more detail you can use the excellent Subversion and Tortoise SVN documentation.

See full article from here 

Reflector for .NET

Reflector is the class browser, explorer, analyzer and documentation viewer for .NET. Reflector allows to easily view, navigate, search, decompile and analyze .NET assemblies in C#, Visual Basic and IL.

Reflector.zip – .NET Reflector, Version 5.0.50.0, Add-Ins

Resourcer for .NET

Resourcer is an editor for .resources binaries and .resX XML file formats used with the .NET platform. Resourcer allows editing of name/string pairs, import of bitmaps/icons and and merging of resources from different sources.

Resourcer.zip – .NET Resourcer files

CommandBar for .NET

The CommandBar class library extends Windows Forms with classes for CommandBar, ReBar, CoolBar, and bitmaped menu controls. 24 bit alpha channel images are supported on Windows 2000.

CommandBar.zip – Library and C# source code

Writer for .NET

Writer is a simple WYSIWYG editor for HTML files. The program allows you to edit HTML files using simple editing functionality like Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Find, Replace. Writer also supports text layout and formatting, hyperlink editing and insertion of dates and pictures.

Writer.zip – Executable and C# source code

Mapack for .NET

Mapack is a .NET class library for basic linear algebra computations. It supports Norm1, Norm2, Frobenius Norm, Determinant, Infinity Norm, Rank, Condition, Trace, Cholesky, LU, QR, single value decomposition, least squares solver and eigenproblems.

Mapack.zip – Library and C# source code