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Presentation
The Current Practices of Changing Secure Software: An Empirical Study
The 35th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium On Applied Computing
  • Ameerah Muhsina Jamil, Iowa State University
  • Lotfi ben Othmane, Iowa State University
  • Altaz Valani, Security Compass
  • Moataz Abdelkhalek, Iowa State University
  • Ayhan Tek, Cyber Electra
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Conference
The 35th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium On Applied Computing
Publication Version
Accepted Manuscript
Link to Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1145/3341105.3373922
Publication Date
1-1-2020
DOI
10.1145/3341105.3373922
Conference Title
The 35th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium On Applied Computing
Conference Date
March 30-April 3, 2020
Geolocation
(49.1950602, 16.606837100000007)
Abstract

Developers change the code of their software to add new features, fix bugs, or enhance its structure. Such frequent changes impact occasionally the security of the software. This paper reports a qualitative study of the practices of changing secure-software in the industry. The study involves interviews with eleven developers and security experts working on banking software, software for control systems, and software consultation companies. Through these interviews, we identified that the main security aspects are: dependency vulnerabilities, authentication and authorization, and OWASP 10 vulnerabilities. The common techniques used to assess software after code change are: code review, code analysis, testing, and keywords search. The main challenges that practitioners face are the diversity of the security issues and the lack of effectiveness of the security assurance tools in detecting vulnerabilities. The study suggests that developers of secure software need techniques that support effective security assurance of modified software.

Comments

This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Jamil, Ameerah Muhsinah, Lotfi ben Othmane, Altaz Valani, Moataz Abdelkhalek, and Ayhan Tek. “The Current Practices of Changing Secure Software.” The 35th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium On Applied Computing. Brno, Czech Republic, March 30-April 3, 2020. DOI: 10.1145/3341105.3373922. Posted with permission.

Copyright Owner
The Authors
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Citation Information
Ameerah Muhsina Jamil, Lotfi ben Othmane, Altaz Valani, Moataz Abdelkhalek, et al.. "The Current Practices of Changing Secure Software: An Empirical Study" Brno, Czech RepublicThe 35th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium On Applied Computing (2020)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/lotfi-benothmane/9/