Until quite recently, the correctness and security of software systems was a largely theoretical problem relevant only for a small group of computer specialists. Today it is a fundamental problem for society at large, with security breaches in banking software, malware attacks and bugs in programs affecting millions of people and making the headlines almost daily. The computer science community is developing verification and synthesis tools which will mechanize ever more tasks in the design of secure programs. This book presents the papers delivered at the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) Summer School Marktoberdorf 2013 – Software Systems Safety. The participants represented research groups from both industry and academia, and the subjects covered included: software model checking via systematic testing, program synthesis, E voting systems, probabilistic model checking in biology, infinite state model checking, Boolean satisfiability, interactive proof, and software security by information flow control. The Marktoberdorf Summer School is one of the most renowned international computer science summer schools, and this book, with its detailed overview of current research results with special emphasis on the solving of software systems security problems, will be of interest to all those whose work involves systems security.
