Article: The Need for Measuring Software Security

Given the complex nature of modern software solutions, software testing is a crucial process step in the development cycle. Best practices in software testing are (more or less) standardized and supported with a variety of different tools. As a result, we see complex applications that can be used efficiently without failing too often. Furthermore, an experienced software tester is able to measure the quality of a software application and compare the results to other software applications.

Unfortunately, in our security assessments we often find reliable software applications that contain critical security vulnerabilities. In this article, Dr. Markus Schumacher and Sebastian Schinzel from Virtual Forge show an example of why security testing is that different from traditional software testing. Furthermore, the article shows Virtual Forge's approach to measuring the security of business software applications.

The article appeared in the first issue of Testing Experience, a new magazine that targets for professional software testers.