2018/07/03 by Kai Mindermann, Stefan Wagner, Mindermann, Kai +1
Computer Science · #Advanced Malware Detection Techniques #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #Digital and Cyber Forensics #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Software Engineering (cs.SE) #Web Application Security Vulnerabilities
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1807.01095
openalex publication_date 2018/07/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Context: Cryptographic APIs are said to be not usable and researchers suggest to add example code to the documentation. Aim: We wanted to create a free platform for cryptographic code examples that improves the usability and security of created applications by non security experts. Method: We created the open-source web platform CryptoExamples and conducted a controlled experiment where 58 students added symmetric encryption to a Java program. We then measured the usability and security. Results: The participants who used the platform were not only significantly more effective (+73 %) but also their code contained significantly less possible security vulnerabilities (-66 %). Conclusions: With CryptoExamples the gap between hard to change API documentation and the need for complete and secure code examples can be closed. Still, the platform needs more code examples.