Management of technical issues in the development of secure systems

Systems with critical functions are widespread in defence, government and commercial organisation. The major issues concerning the correct functioning of these types of systems are similar but the emphases placed on the issues are different. This results mainly from safety critical systems having typically fewer users and not being networked to the same extent as security and financially critical systems. However the severity of the effect of malfunction on safety critical systems is much greater. This paper deals with the management of the security related issues of typical large networked systems used by defence organisations and financial institutions, but analogies can be drawn to other functionally critical systems. The paper is intended as a management digest of the plethora of standards and guidelines that exist for security critical systems, and it draws on the experience gained by Admiral Management Services during its many procurement consultancy and system evaluation projects