patterns & practices Security Architecture and Design Review Index

patterns & practices Developer Center

J.D. Meier, Alex Mackman, Blaine Wastell, Prashant Bansode, Kishore Gopalan

Microsoft Corporation

August 2005

Summary

This page provides an index of the resources that will help you to perform architecture and design reviews for security. You can use architecture and design reviews to discover security vulnerabilities that, if left undiscovered, tend to have a cascading impact on later phases of the development process. The approach uses security frames to help make architecture and design reviews for security systematic and repeatable. Security frames define a set of pattern-based categories that organize repeatable problems and solutions. You can use these categories to divide your application architecture for further analysis and to identify application vulnerabilities. The categories within the frame represent the critical areas where mistakes are most often made.

Contents

Security Architecture and Design Review Approach
Security Architecture and Design Review Overview
Security Architecture and Design Reviews By Type
Checklists
Security Frames

Security Architecture and Design Review Approach

Figure 1 shows the three aspects of architecture and design reviews for security.

Figure 1. Architecture and design review approach

The three major aspects to consider while conducting an architecture and design review for security are:

• Deployment and infrastructure. Review the design of your application as it relates to the target deployment environment and the associated security policies. Consider the constraints imposed by the underlying infrastructure-layer security and the operational practices in use.
• Security frame. Review the security approach that was used for critical areas of your application. An effective way to do this is to focus on the set of categories that have the most impact on security, particularly at an architectural and design level, and where mistakes are most often made. The security frame describes these categories. They include authentication, authorization, input validation, exception management, and other areas. Use the security frame as a roadmap so that you can perform reviews consistently, and to make sure that you do not miss any important areas during the review.
• Layer-by-layer analysis. Review the logical layers of your application, and evaluate your security choices within your presentation, business, and data access logic.

Security Architecture and Design Review Overview

To perform a security architecture and design review, evaluate your application architecture in relation to its target deployment environment. Next, review your design choices in each of the key areas defined by the security frame. Finally, conduct a layer-by-layer analysis and examine the security mechanisms employed by your key components within each of the layers. The following How To module shows you how to perform a security architecture and design review.

Security Architecture and Design Reviews by Type

Use the following module to help you perform security and design reviews by application type:

• Security Architecture and Design Review for Web Applications

Checklists

Use the following checklists to help ensure that your review coverage is complete.

• Security Checklist: Architecture and Design Review for Web Applications

Security Frames

Security frames define a set of pattern-based categories that organize repeatable problems and solutions. You can use these categories to divide your application architecture for further analysis and to help identify application vulnerabilities. The categories within the frame represent the critical areas where mistakes are most often made.

• Cheat Sheet: Web Application Security Frame

Feedback

Provide feedback by using either a Wiki or e-mail:

• Wiki. Security guidance feedback page at
  https://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/securityguidancefeedback/
• E-mail. Send e-mail to secguide@microsoft.com.

We are particularly interested in feedback regarding the following:

• Technical issues specific to recommendations
• Usefulness and usability issues

Contributors and Reviewers

• External Contributors and Reviewers: Jason Taylor, Security Innovation
• Microsoft IT Contributors and Reviewers: Shawn Veney
• Microsoft Product Group Contributors and Reviewers: Don Willits
• Test team: Larry Brader, Microsoft Corporation; Nadupalli Venkata Surya Sateesh, Sivanthapatham Shanmugasundaram, Infosys Technologies Ltd.
• Edit team: Nelly Delgado, Microsoft Corporation; Tina Burden McGrayne, TinaTech Inc.
• Release Management: Sanjeev Garg, Microsoft Corporation