The Open Supply Safety Basis (OpenSSF) is updating its Growing Safe Software program (LFD121) course with new interactive studying labs that present builders with extra hands-on studying alternatives.
LFD121 is a free course supplied by OpenSSF that takes about 14-18 hours to finish. Any pupil who passes the ultimate examination will get a certificates that’s legitimate for 2 years.
The course is damaged down into three elements. The primary half covers the fundamentals of safe software program growth, like the best way to implement safe design ideas and the best way to safe the software program provide chain. Half two covers implementation of these fundamentals after which half three finally ends up with safety testing and in addition covers extra specialised matters like risk modeling, fielding, and formal strategies for verifying that software program is safe.
The brand new interactive labs should not required for finishing the course, however do improve the expertise, OpenSSF defined. The labs launch straight within the internet browser, that means no extra software program wants downloading.
Every lab includes working by way of a particular activity, similar to validating enter of a easy information kind. “Studying the best way to do enter validation is necessary,” mentioned David Wheeler, director of open supply provide chain safety, at OpenSSF. “Attackers are *repeatedly* attacking applications, so builders have to be taught to validate (verify) inputs from potential attackers in order that it’s a lot tougher for attackers to malicious inputs right into a program.”
Every lab features a common purpose, background on the difficulty, and details about the particular duties. College students will work by way of a pre-written program that has some areas that can must be stuffed in by the scholar.
In accordance with Wheeler, the purpose of all the labs isn’t to be taught particular applied sciences, however to be taught core ideas about writing safe software program. For instance, within the enter validation lab, the scholar solely wants to repair one line of code, however that line of code is the one which does the validation, and due to this fact, is critically necessary.
“Actually, with out the enter validation line to be crafted by the consumer, the code has a vulnerability (particularly a ‘cross-site scripting vulnerability’),” mentioned Wheeler.
College students may also get assist all through the lab by requesting context-specific hints that have in mind the place they’re caught. Wheeler defined that the hints assist college students progress by way of the labs even when they’re not aware of the actual programming language used within the lab.