An Exploratory Study of the Security Design Pattern Landscape and their Classification

Security is a critical part of information systems and must be integrated into every aspect of the system. It requires a lot of expertise to design and implement secure systems due to the broad coverage of security issues and threats. A good system design is based on sound software engineering principles which leverages proven best practices in the form of standard guidelines and design patterns. A design pattern represents a reusable solution to a recurring problem in a specific context. The current security design pattern landscape contains several patterns, pattern catalogs and pattern classification schemes. To apply appropriate patterns for a specific problem context, a deeper understanding of this domain is essential. A survey of patterns and their classification schemes will aid in understanding pattern coverage and identifying gaps. In this paper, the authors have presented a detailed exploratory study of the security design pattern landscape. Based on their study, the authors have identified shortcomings and presented future research directions.