On the Relationship between Software Complexity and Security

TL;DR

This paper explores how software complexity impacts security, emphasizing that increased complexity often leads to vulnerabilities, bugs, and security risks, which can have severe consequences for organizations and users.

Contribution

It highlights the critical relationship between software complexity and security, advocating for minimal complexity to enhance security and reduce vulnerabilities.

Findings

Higher complexity correlates with increased security vulnerabilities.

Complex software systems are harder to understand and maintain.

Reducing complexity can improve security and reliability.

Abstract

This work aims at discussing the complexity aspect of software while demonstrating its relationship with security. Complexity is an essential part of software; however, numerous studies indicate that they increase the vulnerability of the software systems and introduce bugs in the program. Many developers face difficulty when trying to understand the complex components of software. Complexity in software increases when objects in the software are used to design a more complex object while creating a hierarchical complexity in the system. However, it is necessary for the developers to strive for minimum complexity, as increased complexity introduces security risks in the software, which can cause severe monetary and reputational damage to a government or a private organization. It even causes bodily harm to human beings with various examples found in previous years where security breaches led to severe consequences. Hence it is vital to maintain low complexity and simple design of structure. Various developers tend to introduce deliberate complexities in the system so that they do not have to write the same program twice; however, it is getting problematic for the software organizations as the demands of security are continually increasing.