The Parasoft CERT C Compliance extension is a set of assets for your DTP infrastructure that enable you to demonstrate compliance with CERT C Coding Standard guidelines. The extension is shipped as part of the Security Compliance Pack. Contact your Parasoft representative to download and license the Security Compliance Pack. 

In this section:

Background

The CERT C Coding Standard was developed by the CERT Coordination Center to improve the safety, reliability, and security of software systems. CERT coding standards consist of "rules" and "recommendations" and are organized into a set of categories. Rules provide code requirements for adhering to the standard, whereas recommendations are intended to provide guidance that improves the safety, reliability, and security of software systems.

Rules and recommendations are collectively referred to as "guidelines." Guidelines in the CERT C Secure Coding Standard are cross-referenced with Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) entries. A programming pattern that fails to meet CWE's guidelines are called "weaknesses." 

In terms of risk analysis, CERT uses three metrics to help quantify weaknesses:

• the severity of the consequences associated with a failure to comply with the rule
• the likelihood that a coding flaw introduced by ignoring the rule will result in an exploitable vulnerability
• the remediation cost associated with complying with the rule

The metrics are used to prioritize violations into three levels: L1 (highest priority), L2, and L3. The CERT C Compliance extension configures your DTP implementation to show static analysis violations according to their CERT C priority, guideline, type, and guideline category.

See https://wiki.sei.cmu.edu/confluence/display/c/Introduction to learn more about the standard.

Prerequisites

C/C++test (Standard or Professional) with the Flow Analysis license feature enabled. See Security Compliance Pack for additional information.

Process Overview

1. Install the Security Compliance Pack into DTP Extension Designer.
2. Deploy the CERT C Compliance artifact into your DTP environment. This also deploys the CERT C Compliance extension assets.

3. Analyze code with C/C++test using the SEI CERT C Standard test configuration and report violations to DTP. You can configure C/C++test to use the local test configuration or the test configuration shipped with the Security Compliance Pack.

   If you are using the 2022.1.1 release of the Security Compliance Pack and intend to use the shipped CERT test configurations for analysis, you will need to specify them using the 2022.1.1 version in the test configuration name.
   For example: "SEI CERT C Guidelines [Parasoft 2022.1.1]"

4. Add the CERT C Compliance dashboard and widgets to your DTP interface to view the reported violations within the context of CERT C guidelines.
5. Interact with the widgets and reports to identify code that needs to be fixed, as well as print out the reports for auditing purposes.

CERT C Compliance Extension Assets

This section describes the assets shipped with the CERT C Compliance artifact.

Category and Guideline Definition Files

The following configuration files provide CERT C-oriented compliance categories in DTP interfaces:

• CERT_C-Category.xml
• CERT_C-Guideline-Recommendation.xml
• CERT_C-Guideline-Rule.xml
• CERT_C-Guideline.xml
• CERT_C-Priority.xml

Test Configurations

You can configure C/C++test to run the test configurations shipped with the tool or with the Security Compliance Pack. Refer to the C/C++test documentation for details. The following test configurations are included with the pack:

• SEI CERT C Guidelines
• SEI CERT C++ Rules

Dashboards

After installing the Security Compliance Pack and deploying the CERT compliance artifacts, you will be able to quickly add widgets configured to show CERT-related data by using the following dashboard templates:

• SEI_CERT_C_Compliance.json
• SEI_CERT_CPP_Compliance.json (see CERT C++ Compliance)

See Custom Dashboard Templates for additional information about dashboard templates.

CERT Compliance.json

This is the DTP Workflow you must install and deploy in Extension Designer. It extends DTP’s data processing functionality to produce CERT-specific dashboard widgets and reports. It helps you track compliance status and document guideline enforcement, deviations, and rule re-categorization.

Model and Profiles

You can apply profiles to DTP Enterprise Pack extensions that perform custom calculations and drive reporting mechanisms in DTP. 

• cert-compliance.json: This model file describes how the CERT C and CERT C++ profiles render the data. 
• cert-c.json: This is the default profile that renders data according to the cert-compliance.json model. This profile should be enabled to generate compliance audit reports.
• cert-c-likelihood.json: This profile provides metric information for key performance indicator (KPI) calculations. It renders data according to the KPI.json model.
• cert-c-remediation-cost.json: This profile provides metric information for KPI calculations. It renders data according to the KPI.json model.

See Working with Model Profiles for information about understanding profiles in DTP Enterprise Pack.

KPI.json

This profile extends the Key Performance Indicator artifact so that metrics widgets can show metrics information related to CERT C guidelines. The profile renders the data calculated by the cert-c-likelihood.json and cert-c-remediation-cost.json profiles.

Cross-reference PDF

For your convenience, a PDF that shows the association between Parasoft rules and CERT guidelines is located in the <PACK>/rules/cpptest directory.  

package.json

This file describes the contents of the extension.

Deploying the CERT Compliance Assets

The CERT C Compliance artifacts are installed as part of the Security Compliance Pack (see Installation for instructions). After installing the artifact, you must deploy the assets to your DTP environment. 

1. Choose Extension Designer from the DTP settings (gear icon) menu.
2. Click the Services tab and expand the DTP Workflows services category. You can deploy assets under any service category you wish, but we recommend using the DTP Workflows category to match how Parasoft categorizes the assets. You can also click Add Category to create your own service category (see Working with Services for additional information).
3. You can deploy the artifact to an existing service or add a new service. The number of artifacts deployed to a service affects the overall performance. See Extension Designer Best Practices for additional information. Choose an existing service and continue to step 5 or click Add Service.
4. Specify a name for the service and click Confirm.
5. The tabbed interface helps you keep artifacts organized within the service. Organizing your artifacts across one or more tabs does not affect the performance of the system. Click on a tab (or click the + button to add a new tab) and choose Import from the ellipses menu.
6. Choose Local> Flows> Workflows> Security> CERT Compliance and click Import.
7. Click anywhere in the open area to drop the artifact into the service. 
8. Click Deploy and return to your DTP dashboard.
9. Refresh your browser.

You can now add the CERT C Compliance dashboard and widgets. 

Adding the CERT C Compliance Dashboard

The CERT C dashboard template will be available after installing the Security Compliance Pack. If you do not see dashboard template, restart DTP (see Stopping DTP Services and Starting DTP Applications).  

1. Click Add Dashboard in the DTP toolbar and specify a name when prompted. 
2. (Optional) You can configure the default view for the dashboard by specifying the following information:
   1. Choose the filter associated with your project in the filter drop-down menu. A filter represents a set of run configurations that enabled custom views of the data stored in DTP. See DTP Concepts for additional information.
   2. Specify a range of time from the Period drop-down menu. 
   3. Specify a range of builds from the Baseline Build and Target Build drop-down menus.  
   
   
3. Enable the Create dashboard from a template option and choose the SEI CERT C Compliance dashboard.
4. Click Create to finish adding the dashboard.

If you have already executed C/C++test on your project using the SEI CERT C test configuration, most widgets will render data as soon as the dashboard is added. You can immediately begin working with the data to help you track your compliance goals (see Viewing CERT C Compliance Widgets). Additional steps, however, are necessary to use the Remediation Cost and Likelihood Score widgets, which rely on calculations executed by the KPI extension. See Enabling the CERT KPI Widgets for instructions.

Manually Adding the CERT C Widgets

You can manually add the CERT C widgets to an existing dashboard. See Adding Widgets for generation instructions on how to add widgets to a dashboard. After deploying the artifact, widgets will appear in the SEI CERT category.

The following configurations are available:

Enabling the CERT KPI Widgets

The Remediation Cost and Likelihood Score widgets are instances of the native Metrics - Summary DTP widget configured to present CERT-specific metrics data. When invoked, the KPI extension performs custom calculations according to the SEI CERT C Remediation Cost and SEI CERT C Likelihood KPI profiles and reports the processed data in the widgets. 

The build must have static analysis and metrics analysis data for the KPI extension to perform the calculation. Be sure that C/C++test has been executed with the Metrics and SEI CERT C Guidelines test configurations under the same build ID. The metrics analysis must also include data for the Logical Lines of Code metric (metricId METRIC.NOLLOCIF). The guidelines test configuration will run analysis that provides violations for both rules and recommendations. You can also run the SEI CERT C Rules test configuration if do not need to gather data for recommendations. Refer to the C/C++test documentation for details about setting the build ID and executing the Metrics test configuration.  

1. Choose Extension Designer from the DTP settings (gear icon) menu and click the Services tab. 
2. Choose a service category and a service for the extension. We recommend deploying the KPI extension to the DTP Workflows category.
3. Open the vertical ellipses menu and choose Import> Local> Flows> Workflows> Security> Key Performance Indicator.
4. Click anywhere in the space to drop the flow into the service tab and click Deploy.
5. Click on the compliance category (i.e., DTP Workflows) and expand your service to expose the available endpoints.
   
6. Expand the Key Performance Indicator section and copy the endpoint. Extension Designer presents two paths for the endpoint. The API Endpoint Path includes all API directories and can be used for exercising the endpoint in most cases. The Direct Endpoint Path is the direct path to the endpoint on the server and can be used if the API endpoint path is blocked or inaccessible, such as in some third-party integrations that require authentication. 
   
7. Send a REST request to the endpoint along with the required parameters. For example, you can execute the request in a browser, a cURL command, or add it to a script. The following table describes the required parameters:

http://framemaker:8314/categories/5ae39f928550880f5026fc80?filterId=3&profile=SEI%20CERT%20C%20Likelihood

{
  "success": {
    "title": "KPI",
    "message": "Calculation has started for filter 'docs' using profile 'SEI CERT C Likelihood'. Check debug output for any errors during calculation."
  }
}

Metrics-related calculations are long-running processes and may take several minutes to execute depending on how much data you have to process. After the calculation completes, add the widgets to your dashboard to view the data. The KPI extension only needs to be deployed once, but you must invoke the API separately for each profile, i.e., SEI CERT C Likelihood and SEI CERT C Remediation Cost.

For additional views of the metrics, you can manually add instances of the native Metrics - Summary DTP widget to your dashboard and configure them to use the SEI CERT C Likelihood and SEI CERT C Remediation Cost metrics, as well as set the aggregation value: 

You can click on a widget to open the Single Metric Overview Report.

Viewing CERT C Compliance Widgets 

The following widgets are shipped with the CERT C Compliance DTP Workflow to help you achieve CERT C compliance goals.

CERT Compliance - Status

This widget provides an overview of the project's CERT compliance status.  

By default, the widget shows Rules and Recommendations, as well as all priority levels. You can add multiple instances of the widget and configure different combinations to create robust views of the compliance status. Click on the widget to open the CERT C Compliance Report. 

CERT Levels - Target

This widget provides an overview of the compliance status for each priority level in a tooltip for the target build. The tooltip also includes applicable deviations. Click on the widget to open the CERT C Compliance Report. 

CERT Compliance - Status by Level

The widget shows the overall compliance status, as well as the compliance status for each CERT C level. You can add multiple instances of the widget configured to use a different profile, e.g., a profile with disabled guidelines, to view your current compliance status. Click on the widget to open the CERT C Compliance Report. 

The code can be compliant with deviations and violations that have been deemed acceptable. See Deviation Report for additional information about deviations.

The status will be set to Not Compliant if Parasoft code analysis rules documented in your profile were not included in the specified build or if unacceptable violations have been reported. Make sure all rules are enabled in C/C++test and re-run analysis.

CERT Compliance - Percentage Widget

This widget shows the completeness of CERT compliance as a percentage. Completeness is based on the number of guidelines being enforced in the profile. Click on the widget to open the CERT C Compliance Report.

CERT Compliance - Guidelines by Status

This widget shows the compliance status for a specific Rule or Recommendation per priority level. You can add multiple instances of the widget configured to different type/priority level combinations to help you understand your compliance status from different perspectives.

The pie chart can represent up to four different guideline statuses for the selected category:

You can perform the following actions:

• Mouse over a pie slice to view details.
• Click on a section to open the CERT C Compliance Report filtered by the type, priority, and compliance status.
• Click on the number of violations counter to open the CERT C Compliance Report filtered by the type, priority, and compliance status.
• Click on the number of deviations counter to open the Deviation Report filtered by the type and priority.

CERT Violations by Category - TreeMap Widget

This widget provides a representation of the highest concentration of static analysis violations per type and priority level. Tiles are color-coded according the priority level:

• red tiles represent L1 violations
• yellow tiles represent L2 violations 
• green tiles represent L3 violations

The Parasoft rule(s) enforcing compliance with the guidelines are also presented. Tiles are proportional to the number of static analysis violations reported for each rule. 

The widget uses the hierarchy established in the model profile to correlate Parasoft rules with CERT rules, recommendations, and priorities. You can mouse over a tile in the widget to view the number of violations associated with each rule-guidline-category.

Click on a rule to see the violation in the Violations Explorer.

CERT Compliance by Priority

This widget is an implementation of the standard Compliance By Category widget shipped with DTP. It shows the number and percentage of rules in compliance grouped by rule categories.

 Click on an entry in the table to open the Violations by Compliance Category report. 

Top 5 CERT Categories

This widget is an implementation of the standard Categories - Top 5 Table Compliance widget shipped with DTP. It shows the five CERT guideline categories with the most violations.

Click on a link in the Name column or the more... link to open the Violations by Compliance Category report.

Top 5 CERT Guidelines 

This widget is an implementation of the standard Categories - Top 5 Table widget shipped with DTP. It shows the five CERT guidelines with the most violations.

Click on a link in the Name column or the more... link to open the Violations by Compliance Category report.

CERT Analysis Compliance

This widget is an implementation of the standard Rules in Compliance - Summary widget shipped withe DTP. This widgets shows the following information:

• how many static analysis rules for the selected compliance standard were enabled during code analysis
• how many violations were reported
• the overall percentage of rules that did not report violations
• the change in number of violations from the baseline build to the target build as a percentage (if applicable)

 Click on the widget to open the Violations by Compliance Category report. 

Viewing CERT C Compliance Reports

The CERT Compliance Report provides an overview of your CERT compliance status and serves as the primary document for demonstrating compliance.

You can perform the following actions:

• Use the drop-down menus to sort by the following criteria:
  • Guideline type: Rule, Recommendation, or All 
  • Priority level: L1, L2, L3, or All
  • Compliance status: All, No Rules Enabled, Compliant, Compliant With Deviations, Compliant With Violations, Not Compliant, Missing Rule(s) in Analysis
• Click on a guideline link in the Guideline column to open the Conformance Enforcement Plan. The link goes directly to the specific guideline so that you can review the Parasoft code analysis rule or rules enforcing the guideline. 
• Click on a link in the # of Violations column to view the violations in the Violations Explorer.
• Click on a link in the # of Deviations column to view the suppressed violations in the Violations Explorer.
• Open one of the CERT Compliance sub-reports.
• Click Download PDF to download a printer-friendly PDF version of the report data. If you added a custom graphic to DTP as described in Adding a Custom Graphic to the Navigation Bar, the PDF will also be branded with the graphic. 

The CERT Compliance Report contains four supporting reports:

Profiles

The Security Compliance Pack includes a profile associated with the core CERT C workflow and a set of profiles associated with calculating the SEI CERT C Remediation Cost and SEI CERT C Likelihood KPI metrics. See Working with Model Profiles for additional information about profiles.

About the CERT Compliance Profile

The CERT C Compliance DTP Workflow ships with a default profile that includes information necessary for generating CERT compliance reports. The default profile shows the correlation between CERT guidelines and Parasoft code analysis rules and is suitable for most normal use cases.

If necessary, you can make a copy of the default profile and adjust the correlation between Parasoft code analysis rules and CERT C guidelines to achieve your software quality and compliance goals. 

1. Open Extension Designer and click the Model Profile tab.
2. Expand the CERT Compliance model and choose the SEI CERT C 2018 profile. 
3. Click Export Profile to download a copy. 
4. Click Add Profile and enter a name.
5. Click Confirm to create an empty profile. 
6. Rename the copy of the default profile you exported and click Import Profile. 
7. Browse for the copy and confirm to upload.
8. Click Edit and make your adjustments. 
9. Click Save.

CERT C KPI Profiles

The KPI artifact shipped with the Security Compliance Pack includes the SEI CERT C Likelihood and SEI CERT C Remediation Cost profiles. The profiles assign weights to the metrics analysis rules in order to calculate a KPI value for the build.

The default profile is suitable for most normal usage, but you can adjust the weights for each metrics rule if necessary.

1. Open Extension Designer and click the Model Profile tab.
2. Expand the KPI model and choose either the SEI CERT C Likelihood or SEI CERT C Remediation profile.
3. Click Export Profile to download a copy. 
4. Click Add Profile and enter a name.
5. Click Confirm to create an empty profile. 
6. Rename the copy of the default profile you exported and click Import Profile. 
7. Browse for the copy and confirm to upload.
8. Click Edit and make your adjustments. 
9. Click Save.