University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 The Software Vulnerability Ecosystem: Software Development In The Context Of Adversarial Behavior Saender Aren Clark University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Databases and Information Systems Commons, and the Engineering Commons Recommended Citation Clark, Saender Aren, "The Software Vulnerability Ecosystem: Software Development In The Context Of Adversarial Behavior" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2233. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2233 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2233 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Software Vulnerability Ecosystem: Software Development In The Context Of Adversarial Behavior Abstract Software vulnerabilities are the root cause of many computer system security fail- ures. This dissertation addresses software vulnerabilities in the context of a software lifecycle, with a particular focus on three stages: (1) improving software quality dur- ing development; (2) pre- release bug discovery and repair; and (3) revising software as vulnerabilities are found. The question I pose regarding software quality during development is whether long-standing software engineering principles and practices such as code reuse help or hurt with respect to vulnerabilities. Using a novel data-driven analysis of large databases of vulnerabilities, I show the surprising result that software quality and software security are distinct. Most notably, the analysis uncovered a counterintu- itive phenomenon, namely that newly introduced software enjoys a period with no vulnerability discoveries, and further that this “Honeymoon Effect” (a term I coined) is well-explained by the unfamiliarity of the code to malicious actors.