2021/02/20 by Tiago Espinha Gasiba, Gasiba, Tiago Espinha, Samra Hodzic +5
Computer Science · #Advanced Malware Detection Techniques #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Information and Cyber Security #Software Engineering (cs.SE) #Software Reliability and Analysis Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2102.10436
openalex publication_date 2021/02/20 · openalex created_date 2022/07/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Security bugs are errors in code that, when exploited, can lead to serious\nsoftware vulnerabilities. These bugs could allow an attacker to take over an\napplication and steal information. One of the ways to address this issue is by\nmeans of awareness training. The Sifu platform was developed in the industry,\nfor the industry, with the aim to raise software developers' awareness of\nsecure coding. This paper extends the Sifu platform with three challenges that\nspecifically address embedded programming courses, and describes how to\nimplement these challenges, while also evaluating the usefulness of these\nchallenges to raise security awareness in an academic setting. Our work\npresents technical details on the detection mechanisms for software\nvulnerabilities and gives practical advice on how to implement them. The\nevaluation of the challenges is performed through two trial runs with a total\nof 16 participants. Our preliminary results show that the challenges are\nsuitable for academia, and can even potentially be included in official\nteaching curricula. One major finding is an indicator of the lack of awareness\nof secure coding by undergraduates. Finally, we compare our results with\nprevious work done in the industry and extract advice for practitioners.\n