Discuss the importance of ‘abuse cases’ in the software development lifecycle.

Discussion 1

.

Respond to this colleagues (BELOW): (Half a page and please, provide a reference )

Discussion Topic

Software is developed using ‘use cases.’ Use cases are in place to describe how the software under development interacts with a user or another software product. Discuss the importance of ‘abuse cases’ in the software development lifecycle.

Post from colleague

In software engineering, a use case can be described as a list of steps that are used to achieve a goal through defining the interaction between a role and a system. The role is usually an actor who can either be a person or an external system. It was introduced by Ivar Jacobson about 20 years ago. It describes and captures all the probable ways that users can interact with the system and achieve the users’ desired goals, as well as showing what could possibly go wrong, preventing the users from achieving their goals (Adrian, 2017).

Abuse cases, also known as misuse cases are developed from use cases. It was make known by John McDermott and Chris Fox in 1999 where they defined it as a form of interaction between the system and an actor that leads to a result that can be harmful to the system or the actor (John and Chris, 1999). The main role played by the abuse case is to dictate any sort of functionality that is not desired in the software system. In simpler terms, it helps in the identification of security requirements through the exhibiting of negative scenarios.

The abuse case also provides the developers of the software with a range of the security privileges that might be abused. It is obvious that any abuse of the software can be completed through gaining of control over the targeted software. It is therefore the task of the abuse case to describe the kind of privileges that might be misused to accomplish an abuse.

References

Adrian Citu, (2017).(My) CSSLP Notes – Secure Software Requirements. Retrieved from: https://adriancitu.com/tag/abusecases/#:~:text=Functional%20requirements%20describe%20how%20the,are%20translated%20into%20functional%20requirements.&text=Misuse%20cases%2C%20also%20known%20as,requirements%20by%20modeling%20negative%20scenarios.

John McDermott and Chris Fox ( 1999). “Using Abuse Case Models for Security Requirements Analysis” (PDF). Proceedings of the 15th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, 1999. (ACSAC ’99): 55–64