Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Podcast Series

Far too often software programs continue to collect metrics for no other reason than that is how it has always been done. This leads to situations where, for any given environment, a metrics program is defined by a list of metrics that must be collected. A top-down, deterministic specification of graphs or other depictions of data required by the metrics program can distract participants from the...

In working with software and systems teams developing technical products, Judy Hwang, a senior software engineer in the SEI CERT Division, observed that teams were not investing the time, resources and effort required to manage the product lifecycle of a successful product. These activities include thoroughly exploring the problem space by talking to users, assessing existing solutions, understand...

The ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to partner with the software engineer, doctor, or warfighter depends on whether these end users trust the AI system to partner effectively with them and deliver the outcome promised. To build appropriate levels of trust, expectations must be managed for what AI can realistically deliver. In this podcast from the SEI's AI Division, Carol Smith, a senior r...

In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, Bill Nichols and Julie Cohen talk with Suzanne Miller about how automation within DevSecOps product-development pipelines provides new opportunities for program managers (PMs) to confidently make decisions with the help of readily available data. As in commercial companies, DoD PMs are accountable for the overall c...

In the wake of the COVID pandemic, the workforce decentralized and shifted toward remote and hybrid environments. In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Dan Costa, technical manager of enterprise threat and vulnerability management, and Randy Trzeciak, deputy director of Cyber Risk and Resilience, both with the SEI's CERT Division, discuss how rem...

Independent verification and validation (IV&V) is a significant step in the process of deploying systems for mission-critical applications in the Department of Defense (DoD). In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Justin Smith, senior Agile transformation leader in the SEI Software Solutions Division, talks with principal researcher Suzanne Miller...

Zero trust architecture has the potential to improve an enterprise's security posture. There is still considerable uncertainty about the zero trust transformation process, however, as well as how zero trust architecture will ultimately appear in practice. Recent executive orders have accelerated the timeline for zero trust adoption in the federal sector, and many private-sector organizations are f...

In Ansible, roles allow system administrators to automate the loading of certain variables, tasks, files, templates, and handlers based on a known file structure. Grouping content by roles allows for easy sharing and reuse. When developing roles, users must deal with various concerns, including what operating system(s) and version(s) will be supported and whether a single node or a cluster of mach...

In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Gregory J. Touhill, director of the SEI CERT Division, talks with principal researcher Suzanne Miller about the 2020 attack on Solar Winds software and how to prevent a recurrence of another major attack on key systems that are in widespread use. Solar Winds is the name of a company that provided software to...

In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI)   Marisa Midler and Samantha Chaves, penetration testers with the SEI's CERT Division, talk with Suzanne Miller about a penetration-testing repository that they helped to build. The repository is a source of information for active directory, phishing, mobile technology, systems and services, web applications,...

While the memory safety and security features of the Rust programming language can be effective in many situations, Rust's compiler is very particular on what constitutes good software design practices. Whenever design assumptions disagree with real-world data and assumptions, there is the possibility of security vulnerabilities–and malicious software that can take advantage of those vulnerabiliti...

Societal-scale software systems, such as today's commercial social media platforms, are among the most widely used software systems in the world, with some platforms reporting billions of daily active users. These systems have created new mechanisms for global communication and connect people with unprecedented speed. Despite the numerous benefits of societal-scale systems, these systems are desig...

In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Gregory J. Touhill, director of the SEI CERT Division, talks with Suzanne Miller about secure by design, secure by default, a  longstanding tenet of the work of the SEI and CERT in particular . The SEI has been in the forefront of secure software development, promoting an approach where security weaknesses are...

Secure by design means performing more security and assurance activities earlier in the product and system lifecycles. A secure-by-design mindset addresses the security of systems during the requirements, design, and development phases of lifecycles rather than waiting until the system is ready for implementation. The need for a secure-by-design mindset is exacerbated by the amount of interconnect...

Like all technical debt, enterprise technical debt consists of choices expedient in the short term, but often problematic over the long term. In enterprise technical debt, the impact reaches beyond the scope of a single system or project. Because ignoring enterprise technical debt can have significant consequences, software and systems architects should be alert for it, and they should not let it...

The recent growth of applications that leverage large language models, including ChatGPT and Copilot, has spurred reactions ranging from fear and uncertainty to adoration and lofty expectations. In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, Jay Palat, senior engineer and technical director of AI for mission, and Dr. Rachel Dzombak, senior advisor to the direct...

DevSecOps practices, including continuous-integration/continuous-delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, enable organizations to respond to security and reliability events quickly and efficiently and to produce resilient and secure software on a predictable schedule and budget. Despite growing evidence and recognition of the efficacy and value of these practices, the initial implementation and ongoing improve...

Rust is growing in popularity. Its unique security model promises memory safety and concurrency safety, while providing the performance of C/C++. In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI), David Svoboda and Joe Sible, both engineers in the SEI's CERT Division, talk with principal researcher Suzanne Miller about the Rust programming language and its se...

Coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD) begins when at least one individual becomes aware of a vulnerability, but it can't proceed without the cooperation of many. Software supply chains, software libraries, and component vulnerabilities have evolved in complexity and have become as much a part of the CVD process as vulnerabilities in vendors' proprietary code. Many CVD cases now require coordi...

In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Dr. Carol Woody, a principal researcher in the SEI's CERT Division, talks with Suzanne Miller about the SEI's newly released Acquisition Security Framework, which helps programs coordinate the management of engineering and supply-chain risks across system components including hardware, network interfaces, sof...

In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Scott Hissam, a researcher within the SEI's Software Solutions Division who works on software assurance in Department of Defense (DoD) systems, talks with Linda Parker Gates, initiative lead for the SEI's Software Acquisition Pathways, about the use of free and open-source software (FOSS) in the DoD, building...

In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Dr. Sam Procter and Lutz Wrage, researchers with the SEI, discuss the Guided Architecture Trade Space Explorer (GATSE), a new SEI-developed model-based tool to help with the design of safety-critical systems. The GATSE tool allows engineers to evaluate more design options in less time than they can now. This...

In aiming for correctness and security of product, as well as for development speed, software development teams often face tension in their objectives. During a recent customer engagement that involved the development of a continuous-integration (CI) pipeline, developers wanted to develop features and deploy to production, deferring non-critical bugs as technical debt, whereas cyber engineers want...

The shift to a cloud environment provides significant benefits. Cloud resources can be scaled quickly, updated frequently, and widely accessed without geographic limitations. Realizing these benefits, however, requires organizations to manage associated organizational and technical risks. In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, Chris Alberts, principal c...

Competitive pressures in many domains, as well as development paradigms such as Agile and DevSecOps , have led to the increasingly common practice of continuous delivery or continuous deployment where frequent updates to software systems are rapidly and reliably fielded. In today's systems, releases can occur at any time—possibly hundreds of releases per day—and each can be instigated by a differe...