The importance of code verification

The creation of a simple Web site, the development of commercial sites that provide access to particular infrastructure or applications for industry, and the modification of legacy software are now an integral part of the needs of small companies and large industrial groups alike. No matter whether these services are based on packaged products or are developed from scratch perhaps by leveraging open source resources, whatever their function they have two elements in common: the writing (or modification) of a code and the programmer who executed it. But who guarantees that a proper job was done? The site or application may be working fine, perhaps they are running on up-to-date facilities protected by mighty firewalls but, the problem, particularly with regard to security, may be just around the corner. Whether through distraction, or the inexperience of the programmer some flaw in the code not yet highlighted may be waiting for a hacker ready to exploit it. Let us take the example of a source code that has been modified to include new functions; this procedure, if performed without the necessary attention to security specifications, could be harmful. For example, an attacker could exploit a buffer overflow to go in and corrupt the code and modify it at will. Of course, this is not a criticism of programmers who, even in the case of trained professionals, out of tens of thousands of lines of code can humanly commit an oversight. The problem is that when code is analyzed by the person who wrote it, detecting a possible flaw is even more difficult, and that is where code verification, better known as code auditing, comes in. This is an essential procedure for detecting errors and, for best results, it is advisable to have it performed by a third-party company that can evaluate and give an objective view of the work that has been done.Code Audit is also part of the review procedures for companies that require high security standards and undergo Vulnerability Assessment, which is the process of evaluating the security of computer systems.

Verifications for industry

SCADA is a term little known to most, but it is familiar to those involved in industrial software development, and it stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. There are services that allow external access to the control systems of an industrial plant, just as there is software that controls and operates peripheral units such as PCLs ( the computers delegated to industrial process controls). These are essential elements in keeping the plant in productivity efficiently and safely for the people who work there. All of this is managed by SCADA software, which, in addition to ensuring that the system is working perfectly, must not have security holes that could facilitate possible intrusions. Again, to verify that there are no problems in the code and to evaluate the work that has been done in creating the software, it is advisable to use outside professionals who can analyze the code to identify possible issues, whether they are related to security instances or to the operation of the system. Hypergrid’s team of experts, in addition to code auditing procedures for websites and applications, can also provide assistance on industrial SCADA software. Through the use of the best software tools, which are always up-to-date, it is able to evaluate the work done by programmers and in the case of the discovery of system flaws suggest the appropriate solution.

All services can be configured according to business needs, for more information contact us at info@hypergrid.it