Point-and-Shoot Security Design: Can We Build Better Tools for Developers?

Security property degrees systematize the angles from which one can discuss the security of a system. Microscopic properties characterize how specific actions affect parts of a system. Mesoscopic properties describe how the pursuit of an attack objective may affect the system and the attacker. Macroscopic properties represent the interaction of a threat environment with a system. Properties of different degrees are interdependent, but not in a simple and universal manner. Security design aims to control security properties, shaping them in a favorable way. Its objective is macroscopic control through design decisions on all three degrees. Design tools today occupy mostly the lower half of the property degree scale. A few macroscopic design aids exist but provide little guidance to engin eers. Security designers are thus in a similar situation as photographers, having to make fundamental design decisions without methodologies other than their private, homegrown approaches. This is essential for art but a deficiency in engineering. Standardized mechanization in point-and-shoot cameras helps inexpert photographers to a limited extent but can get in the way of the experienced and ambitious. Point-and-shoot security design, shorthand for current practice as well as a widely held expectation, may do the same to security engineers