Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Application Security

New BSIMM Provides Measuring Stick for Secure Application Development Programs

Cigital announced the release of the fourth version of the Building Security In Maturity Model (BSIMM) study, gathering data from 51 security initiatives at corporations around the world.

Cigital announced the release of the fourth version of the Building Security In Maturity Model (BSIMM) study, gathering data from 51 security initiatives at corporations around the world.

The latest version of the study encompasses ten times the measurement data of the original one from 2009. The study is based on in-depth measurement of secure software development programs at companies such as Adobe Systems, Bank of America and SAP. This year, researchers included two new activities in their measurements – simulated software crisis and automated malicious code detection.

“The BSIMM describes what 51 leading firms actually do in their leading application security initiatives,” said Gary McGraw, CTO of Cigital. “So if you wonder ‘how should I approach software security for the enterprise?’ all of the data you need to consider are included in the BSIMM. The BSIMM is a measuring stick that allows you to compare your own approach to those of 51 other major firms.”

Of the 111 activities included in the BSIMM, there are 12 that are practiced by 63 percent of the firms that were studied. These 12 include: identifying obligations related to personally-identifiable information, performing security feature reviews and using external penetration testers.

Organizations can use the BSIMM as a measuring stick to determine where “your approach stands relative to other firms,” the authors of the study state in a paper outlining the study.

 “Fidelity Investments makes use of BSIMM measurements taken over time to identify areas for improvement in our software security initiative,” said David Smith, vice president of Technology Risk Management at Fidelity, in a statement. “Access to the BSIMM Community adds additional value both when trying to get new initiatives off the ground and when working to enhance and evolve existing initiatives.”

The BSIMM shows that software security initiatives worldwide are maturing and expanding, McGraw said, adding that those that are not baking in security are falling behind.

“Though we are making great progress in software security, the problem remains with us and may actually be growing,” he said. “Why?  Because though we are building software with less bugs per square inch, we are making more square miles of code than ever before.  That is, we know how to build secure software, now we need to use those methods universally.”

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.
Written By

Marketing professional with a background in journalism and a focus on IT security.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Application Security

Cycode, a startup that provides solutions for protecting software source code, emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday with $4.6 million in seed funding.

Application Security

Virtualization technology giant VMware on Tuesday shipped urgent updates to fix a trio of security problems in multiple software products, including a virtual machine...

Application Security

Fortinet on Monday issued an emergency patch to cover a severe vulnerability in its FortiOS SSL-VPN product, warning that hackers have already exploited the...

Application Security

PayPal is alerting roughly 35,000 individuals that their accounts have been targeted in a credential stuffing campaign.

Application Security

GitHub this week announced the revocation of three certificates used for the GitHub Desktop and Atom applications.

Application Security

A CSRF vulnerability in the source control management (SCM) service Kudu could be exploited to achieve remote code execution in multiple Azure services.

Application Security

Drupal released updates that resolve four vulnerabilities in Drupal core and three plugins.