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Reviewer: Kevin W. Wall

Schumacher is a leading authority in the security patterns community, and those approaching his book from a pedantic perspective will find some useful information in it. However, both security and pattern novices, as well as those wishing for a more immediately practical approach, will be put off by its doctoral dissertation-turned-book style. The book is organized into three major sections, in ten chapters. Chapter 1, the introduction, begins with a brief but obligatory “why security is important” speech, then summarizes the author’s view of core security problems, and succinctly previews his proposed solution, namely security engineering using patterns. The introduction ends with an overview of the book’s organization. In Part 1, “Context,” the author discusses software development patterns, including a concise history of patterns, basic pattern concepts, and the organization of individual patterns into larger structures, such as pattern catalogs, pattern systems, and pattern languages. This leads into an examination of pattern classification, and methods of writing and mining patterns, naturally followed by an ensuing discourse on the definition and representation of ontologies, and their role in the security engineering process. In Part 2, “Problem,” Schumacher explores his hardly disputed hypothesis that “human failings are a major reason for security breaches,” and that much design of security is ad hoc, usually done as something of an afterthought. He then offers two simple (and, I would say, rather unconvincing and hardly conclusive) case studies to support this hypothesis. From there, he begins a discussion of classification frameworks of “security improvement artifacts,” which he describes as “any approach, standard, role, method, technique, or tool that helps to improve security.” Here, he begins a dialogue integrating these security improvement artifacts into the software development life cycle, at each stage dedicating two or three pages to a discussion of relevant techniques. After spending about half of the book covering the background, and the existing security terrain, Schumacher finally begins his vision for his “security core ontology” at the end of Part 2. He clarifies some very specific fundamental definitions of terms, such as “asset,” “threat,” “attack,” and “vulnerability,” and ends with a few diagrams showing how all of these concepts relate. One wonders why he did not define these terms, and the relationship between them, much earlier, since he uses them from the beginning. Having at last covered sufficient material to address security patterns in any detail, the author starts Part 3, “Solution,” with a simple example of a password-related security pattern, followed by a brief history of security patterns, and ends it with a monograph on what constitutes a security pattern (versus a software pattern in general). Next is a rather formal attempt at tying earlier chapters together, by integrating Schumacher’s ontology with security patterns. While this section composes the heart of the author’s original research, it also is the chapter that the majority of readers will find the most difficult to slog their way through, since it consists of many mathematical symbols, unusual notation, and formal proofs. Schumacher then describes his vision of a “security pattern search engine,” which can be used by security novices to find security patterns to act as countermeasures against various security threats and vulnerabilities. Part 3 ends by detailing some experiments with a proof-of-concept prototype, and their results. The book ends with a summary chapter, five appendices, a reference section, and an index. The appendices cover sources useful for mining security patterns, present a few more examples of security patterns, and illustrate these examples augmented with metadata described in F-Logic. Also included is a more in-depth review of ontologies, as well as an introduction to F-Logic, a deductive, higher-order language based on knowledge frames and first-order predicate calculus, and frequently used for reasoning in knowledge-based systems. The list of references is very thorough, and includes several interesting ones that I was not aware of, but plan to explore further when time permits. On the other hand, the index is rather sparse, and its organization is somewhat counterintuitive. For example, the index lists people by their first names, rather than their surnames. Although it is no fault of the author, the book fell short of my initial hopes for it being a practical, much needed Gang of Four-like book [1] for the security community. While the techniques that it teaches would be most useful to security novices (one of Schumacher’s intents in selecting security patterns), they are perhaps among the least likely group to read this treatise. Although the book strives to address security in laymen’s terms, as one who has practiced as an information security specialist for the past seven years, as well as spending two years teaching an introductory graduate-level computer security class, I feel that the book will fail to appeal to most security novices. Again, this is no fault of Schumacher, but rather endemic to the modern, fast-paced society in which we live. In this age of watered-down, so-called technical books meant to entertain us (the For Dummies series comes to mind), and books for the impatient (the Learn Information Security in 24 Hours types), security newbies are not going to have the discipline to plod through a book that lacks the security sex appeal that books like the Hacking Exposed series have made popular. Rather, these books will more likely appeal to those in academia who are interested in information security. As a computer security practitioner, I found myself disagreeing with points here and there in this book, but overall, and especially as an academic, I felt this work used a pedagogical approach worth further exploration. Online Computing Reviews Service

Reviewer: Ghita Kouadri Mostéfaoui

Security is an important aspect of emerging open systems, such as those in e-commerce and similar applications. Security is, however, often added after the system is already built, and, therefore, many problems may arise from the lack of a systematic consideration of security in the system analysis and design stages, and throughout the whole of system development. Security patterns have been proposed to encourage such an approach, and to encapsulate best practices in security design, as is the case with software patterns. The main advantage of this paradigm is to address the human factor, which is a main source of errors in building security systems. "A security pattern describes a particular recurring security problem that arises in a specific security context and presents a well-proven generic scheme for a security solution." For example, there are patterns for access control, passwords, and firewalls. This book provides an anchor reference for security patterns. The author gained his expertise from planning and organizing the security workshop Hacker Context, and supervising a set of security-related master's theses. The book is divided into 10 chapters. These chapters address the need for, and history of, security patterns (chapters 1 through 6), and present the foundations of security patterns, provide a theoretical model, and discuss their main applications (chapters 7 and 8). Chapter 10 reviews previous chapters, by discussing the contribution of each one of these chapters, and concludes the book. This text was initially a Ph.D. thesis, which was then published in the form of a book. I don't recommend it for classroom use, but rather as introductory material for people wishing to understand security patterns. I also recommend supplemental material (in the form of a pattern catalog), which I consider a must to complement the book. The pattern catalog is available at http://www.opengroup.org/publications/catalog/g031.htm, and enables system architects and designers to develop security architectures that meet their particular requirements. Online Computing Reviews Service