Title
Characterizing the 'security vulnerability likelihood' of software functions
Abstract
Software maintainers and auditors would benefit from a tool to help them focus their attention on functions that are likely to be the source of security vulnerabilities. However, the existence of such a tool is predicated on the ability to characterize a function's 'security vulnerability likelihood'. Our hypothesis is that functions near a source of input are most likely to contain security vulnerability. These functions should be a small percentage of the total number of functions in the system. To validate this hypothesis, we performed an experiment involving thirty one vulnerabilities in thirty open source systems. This paper describes the experiment, its outcome, and the tools used to conduct it. It also describes the FLF (front line functions) finder, which is a tool that was developed using knowledge gathered from the outcome of the experiment. This tool automates the detection of high-risk functions. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the FLF finder, three open source applications with known vulnerabilities were tested. In addition to this test, a case study was performed on the privilege separation code in the OpenSSH server daemon.
Year
DOI
Venue
2003
10.1109/ICSM.2003.1235429
ICSM
Keywords
Field
DocType
front line functions,security vulnerability,flf finder,open source application,open source systems,software functions,outcome ofthe experiment,software vulnerability,software tools,security vulnerability likelihood,software maintenance,opensshserver daemon,case study,software maintainance,software auditing,ability tocharacterize,openssh server daemon,vulnerabilitiesin thirty,formal specification,security of data,open source system
Privilege separation,Vulnerability (computing),Systems engineering,Computer science,Software security assurance,Software system,Artificial intelligence,Backporting,Software sizing,Software engineering,Vulnerability management,Software quality,Machine learning
Conference
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
1063-6773
0-7695-1905-9
22
PageRank 
References 
Authors
3.12
12
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Dan DaCosta1223.45
Christopher Dahn2434.30
Spiros Mancoridis388856.82
Vassilis Prevelakis444239.69