Toward Detection of Abnormal Behaviors in Timing and Security Requirements

Finding software system defects during the requirements analysis phase can yield significant savings of time and effort when compared to finding the same defects during development or testing phases. The requirements engineering field has helped bring about significant advances in the early detection of system defects. However, a relatively small amount of research has been done regarding the detection of abnormal system behaviors. This is especially true for non-functional requirements (NFRs), which include areas such as timing and security requirements. Our work proposes the beginnings of a domain-specific modeling language for requirements analysis, with a particular emphasis on detecting abnormal system behaviors. We also demonstrate a preliminary version of our approach on a real-time embedded system.