An Integrated Cybersecurity Framework for Software Development and Risk‐Aware Practices in the SDLC

Patterns are a means for capturing experience in solving general problems. They give general solutions to common and recurring problems. They exist at various phases of the software development life-cycle (SDLC), namely the analysis phase, the design phase, the coding phase and the testing phase. Patterns in each phase are identified independently. It is possible for the patterns of one phase to be related to patterns in other phases. This paper proposes pattern mapping to inter-relate the patterns of various phases in SDLC to address this issue. It is advantageous to capture the related patterns of different phases as a single unit for software development. Reusable integrated components (ICs) of patterns are proposed to capture the related patterns. A software IC is a group of inter-related patterns, that gives solutions for a recurring problem at various phases of SDLC. A representation mechanism for ICs is presented using the URA (Unified Representation of an Artifact) model, which captures the software development process. Also, this paper proposes a software development process that is based on reusable ICs of patterns. The representation of a software project developed using ICs is also discussed.

The software development life cycle (SDLC) encompasses diverse aspects, including design, requirements, methodologies, programming languages, tools, frameworks, and user interface design. Effective interoperability and integration among these components are crucial for streamlining workflows, mitigating compatibility issues, and delivering robust software solutions. This study employs the Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) method to evaluate the interoperability and relative importance of these SDLC elements in software development endeavors. The analysis reveals that fostering seamless collaboration among design, requirements, methodologies, languages, tools, and frameworks is essential for optimizing development processes and enhancing overall efficiency and effectiveness. The normalized data highlight the varying degrees of influence each component exerts across different SDLC phases, underscoring the need to recognize and leverage these interdependencies. The deviation sequence, obtained through the GRA method, unveils the relative importance or effectiveness of various elements, providing insights for informed decision-making and identifying areas for potential improvement or optimization. Furthermore, the Grey Relation Coefficient quantifies the correlations between different facets of software development, enabling stakeholders to prioritize areas for improvement and focus attention on elements with the most substantial influence. Notably, the final Grey Relational Grade (GRG) Rank reveals that testing frameworks secured the top rank, suggesting their significant impact on overall development quality, followed by programming languages and user interface design. These rankings offer valuable insights for prioritizing efforts and allocating resources, ultimately enhancing development processes and achieving better project outcomes. The study underscores the importance of a holistic and integrated approach to software development, recognizing the interdependencies among various components and leveraging the insights derived from the GRA method. By embracing this approach, software teams can make informed decisions, streamline workflows, and deliver high-quality, user-centric solutions that meet industry standards and drive success in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.

Software security has become increasingly important because the malicious attack and other hacker risks of a computer system have grown popularity in the last few years. As a result, several researchers have examined security solutions as early as the requirement engineering phase. With the growth of the software business and the internet, there is a need to understand the security risks against each phase of the software development life cycle (SDLC). This study aims to empirically investigate and prioritize the risks that could negatively impact the software security aspects of SDLC in the context of global software development (GSD). To achieve the study objectives, we conducted an industrial empirical study to determine the impact of software security threats against each phase of SDLC. Furthermore, the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) was used to prioritize the list of software security risks against the SDLC. The results and analysis of this study provide a ranked‐based decision‐making framework, which assists the practitioners in considering the most critical security risks on priority. The results show “improper plan for secure requirement identification, inception, authentication, authorization, and privacy,” “lack of threat models updating,” “lack of output validation,” “lack of certification in the final release and archive,” and “spoofing” as the top‐ranked security risks of SDLC in GSD. In addition, the application of FAHP is novel in this domain as it is helpful to address multicriteria decision‐making problems.

The current software engineering practices observed in the local software industry generally lacks the software metrics planning part. The specific planning required to improve the software practices, to gauge the productivity of the individuals, and productivity at different phases of software development life cycle (SDLC), is generally missing. These organizations do not have any planning to gauge and control the business development issues and improve their productivities. During development phase, most of these software houses do collect data about different aspects of the project like project planning, requirement specification, testing, and bugs found. However, these organizations, generally, do not understand the importance of such data elements, how to maintain the data, how to built measurements plan, and most importantly how to use this data to improve their processes and productivity. In fact most of the time, the available data gets destroyed and hence never used. The current talk will discuss the need and importance of software metrics, the role of metrics in different phases of SDLC, and particularly the requirement phase. The requirement elicitation is considered as the most important aspect of software development, and if not handled properly, may cause severe productivity and quality issues. The talk will elaborate different metrics that may be used in requirement elicitation process and hence may help improve the requirement document resulting in improved productivity in the overall software development.

A fuzzy logic based approach for phase-wise software defects prediction using software metrics

Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration has been the goal in many industries, including in the software development industry. One example of this integration comes in the form of integrating AI in the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). To date, the difficulties of incorporating AI-based tools into particular phases of SDLC have not received much attention in research. Using qualitative approach, this study aims to discover the perception on the use of AI-based tools and challenges in integrating them in the analysis phase of SDLC. The study finds out that analyst have positive perception about integrating this technology in their field of work but there are some challenges while integrating this technology such as data security and reliability concern, dependency, and adapting to this technology. This study also discovers some key factors of why some analysts adopt or refuse this technology namely time, urgency, budget, and insecurities of the users.

This article reviews the integration of machine learning (ML) techniques into Software Engineering (SE) across various phases of the software development life cycle (SDLC). The purpose is to investigate the applications of ML in SE, analyze its methodologies, present findings, and draw conclusions regarding its impact. The study categorized ML applications in SE and assessed the performance of various ML algorithms. Authors identified ML applications in SDLC phases, including requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance. ML algorithms, such as supervised and unsupervised learning, are employed for tasks like software requirement identification, design pattern recognition, code generation, and automated testing. In summary, we find that ML-based techniques are experiencing a substantial surge in adoption within the field of software engineering. Nevertheless, it is evident that substantial endeavors are needed to establish thorough comparisons and synergies among these approaches, perform meaningful evaluations grounded in detailed real-world implementations that are applicable to industrial software development. Therefore, our key takeaway is the necessity for a shift in focus towards reproducible research, prioritizing this over isolated novel concepts. Failure to do so may result in the limited practical implementation of these promising applications.

The software development process model or what is commonly called SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) is one of the Software Engineering (RPL) course materials in the Information Engineering Education (PTI) undergraduate study program where one of the competencies is understanding and knowing the concepts of device engineering software that can be applied in the software development life cycle which is summarized in the material for the SDLC software development process model. This material is the initial material that must be mastered by students to develop quality software. The use of interactive and interesting computer assisted learning media is expected to help the stages of the student learning process properly. This requires an interactive learning multimedia application. The purpose of this research is to develop interactive learning media as an alternative to independent learning tools to assist students in mastering the Software Development Process Model (SDLC) material for students and to find out the feasibility of multimedia application products for learning the Software Development Process Model (SDLC). The research and development methodology used in this research is Research and Development (R&D) with Borg and Gall's development steps which include: (1) Research and data collection; (2) Planning; (3) Development of product drafts; (4) Initial field trials; (5) Revision of trial results (6) Field trials; (7) Product improvement; (8) Field implementation test; (9) Completion of the final product; and (10) Dissemination of implementation. This methodology covers all matters relating to development to produce quality interactive learning media software. Based on the trials, the results obtained were 90.63 percent from media experts, 98.08 percent from material experts, 85.46 percent from initial field trials, 84.56 percent from field trials, and 86.27 percent from field implementation trials. The average value obtained is 89 percent based on the results of the overall data analysis. The conclusion of this research is that the development of multimedia applications for learning the Software Development Process Model (SDLC) is feasible as an independent learning medium. The product produced in this development research is a multimedia application for learning flash-based software development process (SDLC) models.

Agile is a software development methodology and an engineering approach that embraces and promotes the changes in cooperation through activities performed during the life cycle of software development. In an agile environment, the company changes the way of doing operations and become open to those changes that deliver the value promptly. Agile development claims to improve customer satisfaction, shorter delivery time, and increase the value of the business. This research paper has the purpose to increase the current body of evidences related to change management in agile development and the survey paper aims to investigate about how change request management, prioritization, and change response are done in different agile processes including XP, Serum, Lean, ASD, AUP, MSF, Crystal, DSDM, FDD. The methodology used in this paper is the systematic literature review. The findings of this paper show that FDD, DSDM, MSF are less collaborative and change responsive as compared to XP, Serum, Lean, ASD, AUP and Crystal.

This history column article provides a tour of the main software development life cycle (SDLC) models. (A lifecycle covers all the stages of software from its inception with requirements definition through to fielding and maintenance.) System development lifecycle models have drawn heavily on software and so the two terms can be used interchangeably in terms of SDLC, especially since software development in this respect encompasses software systems development. Because the merits of selecting and using an SDLC vary according to the environment in which software is developed as well as its application, I discuss three broad categories for consideration when analyzing the relative merits of SDLC models. I consider the waterfall model before the other models because it has had a profound effect on software development, and has additionally influenced many SDLC models prevalent today. Thereafter, I consider some of the mainstream models and finish with a discussion of what the future could hold for SDLC models.

The rising of technology in the 21st century grows in a way that we never thought of before. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted many organizations in different sizes, specialties, and sectors to work online, resulting in a critical need to secure their software, applications, and web-based applications. Furthermore, Organizations that do not implement security in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) process often discover that their applications suffer from security flaws and security bugs, thus exposing their applications to attacks. Applying security measures to the SDLC will ensure that applications are secure from the early planning stages until release. Penetration testing is an essential security measure and is counted as one of the best security practices applied to applications because it focuses on the technical part of application security. Each kind of application the organization uses, in-house developed applications or on-the-shelf applications, has its method for penetration testing. This paper is a systematic literature review that examines the web application security measures and the penetration testing methods and tools to detect vulnerabilities on web applications. Moreover, it gives a general view of adapting penetration testing as a security approach to the SDLC.

The rise in software development has intensified reliance on complex applications across sectors. However, this growth is paralleled by increased cybersecurity threats, revealing critical vulnerabilities within the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Agile and DevOps methodologies, while offering speed and adaptability, often overlook vital security concerns, thus heightening exposure to cyber risks. This study addresses a novel research gap by examining how discrepancies in security integration across SDLC methodologies can lead to significant gaps in cybersecurity posture. Using a combination of case study scenarios, literature-informed analysis, and focus groups with subject matter experts, this research presents a comprehensive applied approach to cybersecurity in software development. Notably, the study engages participants with advanced expertise and real-world experience, whose insights enhance understanding of secure SDLC integration’s theoretical and practical aspects. This multi-method approach provides emerging cybersecurity professionals with actionable hands-on strategies to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities, aligning with current industry standards. The study’s findings underscore the urgency of standardized security practices within the SDLC, contributing to developing industry-wide best practices prioritizing security alongside speed and flexibility. By bridging theoretical frameworks with applied research, this study offers significant advancements for cybersecurity education and industry practice, preparing future professionals to address evolving cybersecurity challenges effectively.

Crowd sourcing, citizen journalism and social networks are Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) that have ushered in civil society's participation in the ICT equation. However, the participation of civil society has been limited to creating content and, to some extent, capturing data about events around the community. An area that has been neglected is the inclusion of these new players in the software development life cycle. Democratizing software development by including civil society in the software development life cycle will increase the variety of software applications and generate more buy-in of applications that improve livelihoods. Such an approach will lead to the emergence of Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (IICT). The challenges that arise when developing IICTs include, inter alia, ownership of IICT, computer illiteracy of beneficiary communities, balkanized nature of communities in place and the well-known challenge of the communication gap between software developers and user communities. My approach to addressing these challenges was to develop the Integrated Development Spatial Planning Framework (IDSPF), a systems development methodology that seeks to demystify software development for grassroots communities by using participatory techniques that are familiar to stakeholders who implement socio economic development projects.

Software development is a collaborative process in which programmers build software by integrating all the stages of the software development life cycle (SDLC). A software repository is a central file storage location where various software packages are stored, and these packages are retrieved and shared between all the software development team members at various locations. The software repositories are divided into various categories based on cooperation, coordination, and communication among the stakeholders as well as evolutionary changes to various software arti-facts such as source code repositories, software bug repositories, historical repositories, run-time repositories and requirement documents, and other documentation. The software bug repository is an essential repository among the entire repositories since the completion of the software is entirely dependent on the bug fixing mechanism associated with this repository in software development. Today's software systems are larger and more complex as they go through various stages from the requirement 98analysis phase to the maintenance phase. A variety of tasks and activities are carried out in each stage of software development, and these are expensive and vulnerable to errors. During software development, a large number of software bugs are continuously generated, and that has become the main reason for the delay in software completion. Hence, there is a vast demand for computational intelligent techniques to accomplish various tasks of software development. In recent years, fuzzy logic techniques emerged and played an important role in various fields of data mining and text mining. Since most of the content related to software bug repositories is text in nature, it is possible to effectively use fuzzy logic techniques to analyze these software bugs.

Cloud-native technologies, such as microservices, containers, and serverless computing, have evolved over the years to become staples in software development, but at the same time, they present several new security risks. DevSecOps has been discussed briefly in this chapter, as well as the practices needed to secure cloud-native applications, focusing on prevention, compliance checks, and sustained monitoring. It explores the automation aspects of CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes clusters, serverless workloads firewalls, and security policy enforcement through IaC. The chapter also considers novel practices such as Aqua Security, Snyk, and Prisma Cloud familiarization and growing trends in AI-assisted security automation and modern-day standardization. Embedding security through the software development life cycle can help organizations adopt security while attaining the requisite level of security moats while retaining the flexibility necessary in today's cloud environment.