Contact:
Stephanie Covert
Object Management Group
+1-843-225 8419
pr@omg.org

OMG Announces Program for First Software Assurance Workshop:
Working Together for Confidence
March 5-7, 2007; Washington, D.C.

Needham, MA, USA - November 9, 2006 - The Object Management Group™ (OMG™) today announced the program for its first Software Assurance Workshop: Working Together for Confidence. The workshop will take place March 5-7, 2007 in Washington, D.C., USA. For full program and registration details, visit http://www.omg.org/swa-program.htm. 

It is becoming increasingly difficult to assess the quality, reliability, performance, robustness, and trustworthiness of systems that often combine consumer-off-the-shelf (COTS), reuse and open source software (OSS) products. Software Assurance - the level of confidence that the software functions as intended and is free of vulnerabilities - becomes even more important especially while facing increased government regulation over information collection and dissemination. Software Assurance is especially important to the defense industry, emergency responders, telecommunications and any other organization with a concern for system and software security. The ultimate goal of Software Assurance is to provide software products - and systems constructed from many software products integrated together - with a high degree of assurance and interoperability.

This three-day Workshop will address technologies, methodologies, tools and standards related to Software Assurance and offer case studies and user experiences emphasizing solutions. While research topics are not excluded, the emphasis is on applied experience. The Workshop program includes tutorials followed by a combination of sessions and panels.

Keynote presentation:

• John P. Hopkinson, President of International Systems Security Engineering Association, Security Strategist - Information & Infrastructure Technologies, Inc.

Tutorials:

• Introduction to Software Security and Assurance Cases
• Security in the Software Life Cycle
• Software Safety Case Management
• An Introduction to Attack Patterns as a Software Assurance Knowledge Resource
• MILS: Architecture Enabling High Assurance
• Presenters from organizations such as: Booz Allen Hamilton, Cigital, James Madison University, National Security Agency, Objective Interface Systems, University of York

Session topics:

• Assurance Cases
• Providing a Standards-based Tool Foundation for Software Assurance
• Panel: Bringing Standards to Software Source Code Security Assessment
• Code Analysis Tools/Evaluation of Tools
• Tools & Technologies
• Software Assurance State of the Art
• Presenters from organizations such as: AGP Micro Ltd., Avian Technologies Ltd., Concurrent Technologies Corp., Ericsson, Fraunhofer FOKUS, IBM Global Business Services, James Madison University, Kanagawa Institute of Technology, KDM Analytics, MITRE Corporation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, ObjectSecurity, Osaka University, PrismTech, Promia, Rockwell Collins, Southeast University, UNISYS, University of York, US Naval Research Laboratory, Valcartier

The Workshop is open to all with an interest in Software Assurance. Workshop participants will include representatives of organizations requiring assured software products; tool vendors; software developers and providers; systems and software integrators; standards bodies; researchers; software security educators and trainers; and software assurance evaluators. All practitioners with relevant experience are invited to come and share their experiences with each other and their vendor community.

The "early-bird" registration deadline is February 5, 2007; the hotel reservation deadline is February 12, 2007. Exhibit space is available; for more information contact Kevin Loughry at loughry@omg.org, or +1-781-444 0404. Sponsorship opportunities are available; contact Ken Berk at kenberk@omg.org or +1-781-444 0404.

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About the Object Management Group
OMG is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies, including: Real-time, Embedded and Specialized Systems, Analysis & Design, Architecture-Driven Modernization and Middleware and an even wider range of industries, including: Business Modeling and Integration, C4I, Finance, Government, Healthcare, Legal Compliance, Life Sciences Research, Manufacturing Technology, Robotics, Software-Based Communications and Space.

OMG's modeling standards, including the Unified Modeling Language™ (UML®) and Model Driven Architecture® (MDA®), enable powerful visual design, execution and maintenance of software and other processes, including IT Systems Modeling and Business Process Management. OMG's middleware standards and profiles are based on the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA®) and support a wide variety of industries.

More information about OMG can be found at www.omg.org. OMG is headquartered in Needham, MA, USA.

Note to editors: MDA, Model Driven Architecture, OMG Logo, UML, UML logo and CORBA are registered trademarks, and OMG, Object Management Group, MOF, MDA Logos, OMG SysML and Unified Modeling Language are trademarks, of Object Management Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.