What Is CERT? Overview of CERT Secure Coding
An estimated 82% of software vulnerabilities are caused by coding errors. For that reason, it is essential that you use a secure coding standard — like CERT— to ensure that your software is protected against potential security vulnerabilities. Here, we explain what is CERT and why CERT secure coding is important.
What Is CERT?
CERT is a secure coding standard maintained by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. It supports commonly used programming languages such as C, C++, and Java.
The standards are developed through a broad-based community effort by members of the software development and software security communities.
The rules and recommendations target insecure coding practices and undefined behaviors that lead to security risks.
The latest rules and recommendations are available on the secure coding standard's website and are also periodically published: C and C++ in 2016 and Java in 2011.
[Related White Paper: How to Write Secure Code in C]
Why Is CERT Secure Coding Important?
CERT secure coding is important because although C, C++, and Java are flexible, high-performance languages, they are still vulnerable to security risks. As these languages are extensively used in many applications, it is vital that code is reviewed at all stages of development.
The aim of the secure coding standard is to not only detect security risks with rules but also provide suggestions that can improve code quality with recommendations.
The scope of the secure coding standard is a whole program coding standard and the goal is to produce safe, reliable, and secure systems.
By using the secure coding standard, you are able to ensure that your software is secure and safeguarded from potential vulnerabilities.
Learn More About How to Ensure Your Software’s Security >>
CERT Risk Assessment
For each guideline included in the secure coding standard, there is a risk assessment to help determine the possible consequences of violating that specific rule or recommendation. There are three sections to the risk assessment: Severity, Likelihood, and Remediation Cost. Each section is assigned a value between 1 and 3, and based upon the results of the assessment, you are able to determine the priority of the violation.
Severity — How serious are the consequences of the rule being ignored.
Value | Meaning | Examples of Vulnerability |
1 | Low | DoS Attack |
2 | Medium | Data Integrity Violation |
3 | High | Run Arbitrary Code |
Likelihood — How likely is the coding flaw introduced by violating the rule can lead to an exploitable vulnerability?
Value | Meaning |
1 | Unlikely |
2 | Probable |
3 | Likely |
Remediation Cost — How expensive will it be to comply with the rule.
Value | Meaning | Detection | Correction |
1 | High | Manual | Manual |
2 | Medium | Automatic | Manual |
3 | Low | Automatic | Automatic |
Each of these three values— Severity, Likelihood, and Remediation Cost — are then multiplied together to determine priority, which is a measure of the risk, and therefore the level of the vulnerability. This can be used to prioritize the repair of violations.
Priorities and Levels
Level | Priorities | Possible Interpretation |
L1 | 12, 18, 27 | Severity: High Severity Likelihood: Likely Remediation Cost: Inexpensive to Repair |
L2 | 6, 8, 9 | Severity: Medium Severity Likelihood: Probable Remediation Cost: Medium Cost to Repair |
L3 | 1, 2, 3, 4 | Severity: Low Severity Likelihood: Unlikely Remediation Cost: Expensive to Repair |
Secure Coding Compliance with Klocwork
The CERT taxonomies for Klocwork improve the security of your code. You can use these modules to automatically find security vulnerabilities. In addition, you can create compliance reports.
How to Enforce CERT Secure Coding with SAST
The best way to ensure that your code is secure is to use a SAST tool, like Klocwork.
SAST tools identify and eliminate security vulnerabilities and software defects early on in development. This helps to ensure that your software is secure, reliable, and compliant.
Klocwork helps you:
- Identify and analyze security risks and prioritizes severity.
- Fulfill compliance standard requirements.
- Apply and enforce coding standards.
- Verify and validate through testing.
- Achieve compliance and get certified faster.
Learn More About How to Enforce Secure Coding Standards >>
Use Klocwork to Ensure Software Security
See for yourself how Klocwork can help you enforce software security standards. Sign up for our next live demo and see how it works.
