2019/09/07 by James H. Davenport, Davenport, James H.
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #Advanced Malware Detection Techniques #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Security and Verification in Computing #Software Engineering (cs.SE)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1909.03325
openalex publication_date 2019/09/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Formal methods have been largely thought of in the context of safety-critical systems, where they have achieved major acceptance. Tens of millions of people trust their lives every day to such systems, based on formal proofs rather than ``we haven't found a bug'' (yet!). Why is ``we haven't found a bug'' an acceptable basis for systems trusted with hundreds of millions of people's personal data? This paper looks at some of the issues in CyberSecurity, and the extent to which formal methods, ranging from ``fully verified'' to better tool support, could help. Alas The Royal Society (2016) only recommended formal methods in the limited context of ``safety critical applications'': we suggest this is too limited.