Security Engineering
Security engineering is, in the broadest sense, the development
of secure systems. A secure system is a system that can be depended
upon despite the occurance of faults, errors and concentrated efforts
that could potentially cause failure.
As a discipline, then, security engineering includes the development
and management of:
- safety critical systems — for example, medical
equipment and aircraft control systems where failure can potentially
lead to injury or death.
- business critical systems — where failure, whilst
not necessarily life-threatening, could represent a significant
economic or financial risk.
As a result, security engineering requires expertise across a number
of different technical areas including: business process analysis,
software engineering, cryptography, computer security, formal methods
and in some cases, psychology and law.
Security engineering is distinct from the more widely held perception
of computer security which, through popularisation, has primarily
been concerned with securing individual machines, networks and gateways
against unauthorised access. Instead, the role of the security engineer
is to try to build systems that are inherently secure; systems that
are resistant to technical faults, errors and malicious intent yet
remain secure.
With experience in security engineering, we can help you to secure
your business with:
- the development of an appropriate security policy comprising
an asset analysis, and a threat model appropriate to your business,
as described in our white paper on
Internet
Security;
- the development of an appropriate disaster recovery plan, and
contingencies;
- security recommendations and policy documents relating to specific
systems, applications and network infrastructure including servers,
workstations, hubs, switches, routers, firewalls and proxy servers;
- security recommendations and policy documents relating to software
development projects;
- secure software development.
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