January/February 2008: Security for the Rest of Us: An Industry
      Perspective on the Secure Software Challenge


*Submission deadline: 1 July 2007*

The public need for good software security becomes more acute every day. 
Typical activities---including selecting, purchasing, and consuming 
services and products, conducting business, and holding national 
elections---increasingly depend on secure software. While security was 
once a specialty of interest to only a small number of developers, it's 
now a critical topic for almost all software developers, project 
managers, and decision makers. The world's software industry includes 
thousands of software vendors from humongous enterprises to one-person 
shops, and the industry as a whole must face the software security 
challenge.

This special issue will report on the state of practice and recent 
advances related to software security in a wide range of industrial 
application domains. It will explore practical and pragmatic ways of 
engineering secure software that can be applied by a wide range of 
development teams. The issue will report on

    * Practical tools and methods for detecting or preventing
      security-relevant defects
    * Practical approaches to incorporating security as part of
      different stages of the software development process
      (requirements, architecture, design, implementation, testing, etc.)
    * The economic motivation for creating secure software
    * Attacks and vulnerabilities: common ways that security fails in
      modern industrial software

Manuscripts must not exceed 5,400 words including figures and tables, 
which count for 200 words each. Submissions in excess of these limits 
may be rejected without refereeing. The articles we deem within the 
theme's scope will be peer-reviewed and are subject to editing for 
magazine style, clarity, organization, and space. We reserve the right 
to edit the title of all submissions. Be sure to include the name of the 
theme you are submitting for.

For detailed author guidelines: visit 
www.computer.org/software/author.htm 
or contact the magazine at 
software@computer.org . Submit your 
article via the Computer Society's Electronic Submission System 
http://cs-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com by 1 July 2007. Only Postscript 
or PDF files can be submitted for review. Specify that you are 
submitting it for the "Security for the Rest of Us" special issue.

For more information about the topic,
contact one of the *guest editors*:

*Konstantin Beznosov
*Assistant Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of British Columbia
+1 604 822 9181
*beznosov@ece.ubc.ca* 

*Brian Chess
*Chief Scientist
Fortify Software
+1 650 213-5604
*brian@fortifysoftware.com* 

___________________________________________________________
 Konstantin Beznosov                  Assistant Professor
 Laboratory for Education and Research in
 Secure Systems Engineering   http://lersse.ece.ubc.ca

 Electrical and Computer Engineering  
 
 University of British Columbia
 
 http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~beznosov/ 
 
 4047-2332 Main Mall          Phone:  +1 604 822 9181
 Vancouver, BC,               Fax:    +1 801 515 8630
 Canada V6T 1Z4 

_____________________________________________________________