Tracking known security vulnerabilities in third-party components Master’s Thesis Mircea Cadariu Tracking known security vulnerabilities in third-party components THESIS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in COMPUTER SCIENCE by Mircea Cadariu born in Brasov, Romania Software Engineering Research Group Software Improvement Group Department of Software Technology Rembrandt Tower, 15th floor Faculty EEMCS, Delft University of Technology Amstelplein 1 - 1096HA Delft, the Netherlands Amsterdam, the Netherlands www.ewi.tudelft.nl www.sig.eu c 2014 Mircea Cadariu. All rights reserved. Tracking known security vulnerabilities in third-party components Author: Mircea Cadariu Student id: 4252373 Email:
[email protected] Abstract Known security vulnerabilities are introduced in software systems as a result of de- pending on third-party components. These documented software weaknesses are hiding in plain sight and represent the lowest hanging fruit for attackers. Despite the risk they introduce for software systems, it has been shown that developers consistently download vulnerable components from public repositories. We show that these downloads indeed find their way in many industrial and open-source software systems. In order to improve the status quo, we introduce the Vulnerability Alert Service, a tool-based process to track known vulnerabilities in software projects throughout the development process. Its usefulness has been empirically validated in the context of the external software product quality monitoring service offered by the Software Improvement Group, a software consultancy company based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Thesis Committee: Chair: Prof. Dr. A. van Deursen, Faculty EEMCS, TU Delft University supervisor: Prof. Dr. A.