Biblio

Context: Software security is an imperative aspect of software quality. Early detection of vulnerable code during development can better ensure the security of the codebase and minimize testing efforts. Although traditional software metrics are used for early detection of vulnerabilities, they do not clearly address the granularity level of the issue to precisely pinpoint vulnerabilities. The goal of this study is to employ method-level traceable patterns (nano-patterns) in vulnerability prediction and empirically compare their performance with traditional software metrics. The concept of nano-patterns is similar to design patterns, but these constructs can be automatically recognized and extracted from source code. If nano-patterns can better predict vulnerable methods compared to software metrics, they can be used in developing vulnerability prediction models with better accuracy. Aims: This study explores the performance of method-level patterns in vulnerability prediction. We also compare them with method-level software metrics. Method: We studied vulnerabilities reported for two major releases of Apache Tomcat (6 and 7), Apache CXF, and two stand-alone Java web applications. We used three machine learning techniques to predict vulnerabilities using nano-patterns as features. We applied the same techniques using method-level software metrics as features and compared their performance with nano-patterns. Results: We found that nano-patterns show lower false negative rates for classifying vulnerable methods (for Tomcat 6, 21% vs 34.7%) and therefore, have higher recall in predicting vulnerable code than the software metrics used. On the other hand, software metrics show higher precision than nano-patterns (79.4% vs 76.6%). Conclusion: In summary, we suggest developers use nano-patterns as features for vulnerability prediction to augment existing approaches as these code constructs outperform standard metrics in terms of prediction recall.

Software security is an important aspect of ensuring software quality. Early detection of vulnerable code during development is essential for the developers to make cost and time effective software testing. The traditional software metrics are used for early detection of software vulnerability, but they are not directly related to code constructs and do not specify any particular granularity level. The goal of this study is to help developers evaluate software security using class-level traceable patterns called micro patterns to reduce security risks. The concept of micro patterns is similar to design patterns, but they can be automatically recognized and mined from source code. If micro patterns can better predict vulnerable classes compared to traditional software metrics, they can be used in developing a vulnerability prediction model. This study explores the performance of class-level patterns in vulnerability prediction and compares them with traditional class-level software metrics. We studied security vulnerabilities as reported for one major release of Apache Tomcat, Apache Camel and three stand-alone Java web applications. We used machine learning techniques for predicting vulnerabilities using micro patterns and class-level metrics as features. We found that micro patterns have higher recall in detecting vulnerable classes than the software metrics.