The Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS)

The Center for Education and Research in
Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS)
Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security

Eugene Spafford - CERIAS

Students: Spring 2026, unless noted otherwise, sessions will be virtual on Zoom.

The Challenge of Secure Software

Sep 13, 2000

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Abstract

Despite decades of advances in computer science and software engineering, our computing systems seem to be less and less trustworthy. Each week seems to bring new stories of computer viruses, invasions of privacy, serious bugs in common software platforms, and network intrusions. The trend seems to be getting worse instead of better. Why is that? And is there hope for safer systems for day-to-day use in e-commerce and government?

In this talk, we will examine some of the factors that have led to this distressing state of events. Included will be a discussion of some rules for designing secure software, and an examination of why the current Internet marketplace encourages those rules to be ignored. The clear solution is not one of technology -- but of consumer action.

Audience feedback is encouraged.



About the Speaker

Eugene Spafford
Dr. Spafford received his B.A. degree with a double major in Mathematics and Computer Sciences from the State University College at Brockport (1979, NY). Upon graduation, he was honored with a SUNY College President\'s Citation. He then attended the School of Information and Computer Sciences (now the College of Computing) at Georgia Institute of Technology, holding both a Georgia Tech President\'s Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. He received his M.S. in 1981, and the Ph.D. in 1986 for his design and implementation of the original Clouds reliable, distributed operating system kernel, and for his contributions as one of the original members of the Clouds design team. Next, Dr. Spafford spent a year and a half as a research scientist with the Software Engineering Center at Georgia Tech. His duties there included serving as a principal software engineer with the Mothra software testing project.



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