Agarwal Et Al: Role of Coupling in Vunerability Propogation

Design phase of the software development is the most appropriate one for incorporating security decisions. Unfortunately, no efficient methodology or tool exists to address security at design phase. Almost negligible work has been reported to assess the impact of object oriented design characteristics on security, though the effort has already been made for quality. Since, the approach presented in the paper investigates how coupling induces vulnerability propagation in an object oriented design, it acquires significance. An algorithm has been introduced to compute Coupling Induced Vulnerability Propagation Factor (CIVPF) for an object oriented design. A case study of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) has been carried out to validate the approach.