A Software Security Case Developing Method Based on Hierarchical Argument Strategy

Security cases-which document the rationale for believing that a system is adequately secure-have not been sufficiently used for a lack of practical construction method. This paper presents a hierarchical software security case development method to address this issue. We present a security concept relationship model first, then come up with a hierarchical asset-threat-control measure argument strategy, together with the consideration of an asset classification and threat classification for software security case. Lastly, we propose 11 software security case patterns and illustrate one of them.

I. Introduction

Assurance case in safety domain has been studied extensively for years, but the application of assurance case technology to security has been explored far less thoroughly [1], [2]. Although researches on software security case have made some progress [3]–[10], there has been a limited use of security case so far, partly because that the details of argument construction strategy are not clear enough and the corresponding security case patterns are not adequate.