Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Podcast Series Members of Technical Staff at the Software Engineering Institute

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 designed to optimize user engagement and scale by using psychology (such as gaming and reward mechanisms) to influence users. Individual users struggle with privacy of their data and bias in these systems, while governments face new threats of misinformation. In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, John Robert and Forrest Shull discuss issues that must be considered when engineering societal-scale systems.

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 addressed, prevented, or eliminated earlier in the software development lifecycle, which not only helps to ensure secure systems, but also saves time and money. Touhill also discusses the CERT strategy in support of SEI sponsors in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and his vision for the future of cybersecurity and the role of the CERT Division.

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 interconnectedness of today’s systems and the increasing amount of automation that characterizes system development. These trends have led to increased levels of risk and made implementation of security controls during test and patching systems after deployment increasingly unsustainable. In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, Robert Schiela, technical manager of the Secure Coding group, and Carol Woody, a principal researcher in the SEI’s CERT Division, talk with Suzanne Miller about the importance of integrating the practices and mindset of secure by design into the acquisition and development of software-reliant systems. 

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 get overlooked or ignored when they come across it. Enterprise technical debt often results in multi-project or organization-wide risks that increase the organization’s cost, efficiency, or security risks. Remediation of enterprise technical debt requires intervention by governance structures whose scope is broader than that of individual teams or projects. In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Stephany Bellomo, a principal engineer in the SEI’s Software Solutions Division, talks with principal researcher Suzanne Miller about identifying and remediating enterprise technical debt.

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 director of the SEI’s AI Division, discuss the current landscape of large language models (LLMs), common misconceptions about LLMs, how to leverage tools built on top of LLMs, and the need for critical thinking around both the outputs of the tools and the trends in their use. 

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 improvement of the methodology can be challenging. In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, senior engineers Vanessa Jackson and Lyndsi Hughes discuss with principal researcher Suzanne Miller the DevSecOps adoption framework, which guides organizations in the planning and implementation of a roadmap to functional CI/CD pipeline capabilities.