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Security metrics for source code structures

Published:17 May 2008Publication History

ABSTRACT

Software security metrics are measurements to assess security related imperfections (or perfections) introduced during software development. A number of security metrics have been proposed. However, all the perspectives of a software system have not been provided specific attention. While most security metrics evaluate software from a system-level perspective, it can also be useful to analyze defects at a lower level, i.e., at the source code level. To address this issue, we propose some code-level security metrics which can be used to suggest the level of security of a code segment. We provide guidelines about where and how these metrics can be used to improve source code structures. We have also conducted two case studies to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed metrics.

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          • Published in

            cover image ACM Conferences
            SESS '08: Proceedings of the fourth international workshop on Software engineering for secure systems
            May 2008
            72 pages
            ISBN:9781605580425
            DOI:10.1145/1370905
            • Program Chairs:
            • Bart De Win,
            • Seok-Won Lee,
            • Mattia Monga

            Copyright © 2008 ACM

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            Association for Computing Machinery

            New York, NY, United States

            Publication History

            • Published: 17 May 2008

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