Security injections: modules to help students remember, understand, and apply secure coding techniques

  • Authors:

  • Blair Taylor;Siddharth Kaza

  • Affiliations:

  • Towson University, Towson, MD, USA;Towson University, Towson, MD, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 16th annual joint conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

With our global reliance on software, secure and robust programming has never been more important. Yet academic institutions have been slow to add secure coding to the curriculum. We present a model using checklist-based security injection modules to increase student awareness and ability to apply secure coding principles, specifically - identify, understand, and correct key security issues in code. The model is evaluated by mapping assessment questions to the cognitive dimension of the revised Bloom's taxonomy. Experiments with students in four sections of CS0 and CS1 show that students using our modules perform significantly better at remembering, understanding and applying secure coding concepts. Students exposed to the modules also show increased ability to write code to address specific security issues.