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arXiv · 2103.08010

On the combination of static analysis for software security assessment -- a case study of an open-source e-government project

Anh Nguyen-Duc·Manh Viet Do·Quan Luong Hong·Kiem Nguyen Khac
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Abstract

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) is a popular quality assurance technique in software engineering. However, integrating SAST tools into industry-level product development and security assessment poses various technical and managerial challenges. In this work, we reported a longitudinal case study of adopting SAST as a part of a human-driven security assessment for an open-source e-government project. We described how SASTs are selected, evaluated, and combined into a novel approach for software security assessment. The approach was preliminarily evaluated using semi-structured interviews. Our result shows that (1) while some SAST tools out-perform others, it is possible to achieve better performance by combining more than one SAST tools and (2) SAST tools should be used towards a practical performance and in the combination with triangulated approaches for human-driven vulnerability assessment in real-world projects.

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Anh Nguyen-Duc, Manh Viet Do, Quan Luong Hong, Kiem Nguyen Khac. 2021-03-14. On the combination of static analysis for software security assessment -- a case study of an open-source e-government project. https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.08010

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