Badger: Complexity Analysis with Fuzzing and Symbolic Execution

Hybrid testing approaches that involve fuzz testing and symbolic execution have shown promising results in achieving high code coverage, uncovering subtle errors and vulnerabilities in a variety of software applications. In this paper we describe Badger - a new hybrid approach for complexity analysis, with the goal of discovering vulnerabilities which occur when the worst-case time or space complexity of an application is significantly higher than the average case. Badger uses fuzz testing to generate a diverse set of inputs that aim to increase not only coverage but also a resource-related cost associated with each path. Since fuzzing may fail to execute deep program paths due to its limited knowledge about the conditions that influence these paths, we complement the analysis with a symbolic execution, which is also customized to search for paths that increase the resource-related cost. Symbolic execution is particularly good at generating inputs that satisfy various program conditions but by itself suffers from path explosion. Therefore, Badger uses fuzzing and symbolic execution in tandem, to leverage their benefits and overcome their weaknesses. We implemented our approach for the analysis of Java programs, based on Kelinci and Symbolic PathFinder. We evaluated Badger on Java applications, showing that our approach is significantly faster in generating worst-case executions compared to fuzzing or symbolic execution on their own

A framework for cots software evaluation and selection for COTS mismatches handling and non-functional requirements

The decision to purchase Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software needs systematic guidelines so that the appropriate COTS software can be selected in order to provide a viable and effective solution to the organizations. However, the existing COTS software evaluation and selection frameworks focus more on functional aspects and do not give adequate attention to accommodate the mismatch between user requirements and COTS software specification, and also integration with non functional requirements of COTS software. Studies have identified that these two criteria are important in COTS software evaluation and selection. Therefore, this study aims to develop a new framework of COTS software evaluation and selection that focuses on handling COTS software mismatches and integrating the nonfunctional requirements. The study is conducted using mixed-mode methodology which involves survey and interview. The study is conducted in four main phases: a survey and interview of 63 organizations to identify COTS software evaluation criteria, development of COTS software evaluation and selection framework using Evaluation Theory, development of a new decision making technique by integrating Analytical Hierarchy Process and Gap Analysis to handle COTS software mismatches, and validation of the practicality and reliability of the proposed COTS software Evaluation and Selection Framework (COTS-ESF) using experts’ review, case studies and yardstick validation. This study has developed the COTS-ESF which consists of five categories of evaluation criteria: Quality, Domain, Architecture, Operational Environment and Vendor Reputation. It also provides a decision making technique and a complete process for performing the evaluation and selection of COTS software. The result of this study shows that the evaluated aspects of the framework are feasible and demonstrate their potential and practicality to be applied in the real environment. The contribution of this study straddles both the research and practical perspectives of software evaluation by improving decision making and providing a systematic guidelines for handling issue in purchasing viable COTS software

First turkish software product line engineering workshop summary

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Software reuse has been a goal of the software community since the early days of software engineering. In this context software product line engineering (SPLE) has gained a broad interest in both academic institutions and industry. This trend can also be observed in Turkey. In the recent years an increasing number of software companies in Turkey have adopted a SPLE approach while others are planning to make the transition. This paper summarizes the results of the First Turkish Software Product Line Engineering Workshop that has been organized in Ankara in June 2012. The primary goal of the workshop was to reflect on the state of practice in SPLE in Turkey. For this five leading SPLE companies in Turkey have shared their experiences in adopting SPLE, and using interactive discussions a research agenda for SPLE in Turkey has been defined. We report both on the experiences from the workshop and the resulting research topics

Parfait - Designing a Scalable Bug Checker

We present the design of Parfait, a static layered program analysis framework for bug checking, designed for scalability and precision by improving false positive rates and scale to millions of lines of code. The Parfait framework is inherently parallelizable and makes use of demand driven analyses. In this paper we provide an example of several layers of analyses for buffer overflow, summarize our initial implementation for C, and provide preliminary results. Results are quantified in terms of correctly-reported, false positive and false negative rates against the NIST SAMATE synthetic benchmarks for C code

Parasol: Efficient Parallel Synthesis of Large Model Spaces

Formal analysis is an invaluable tool for software engineers, yet state-of-the-art formal analysis techniques suffer from well-known limitations in terms of scalability. In particular, some software design domains—such as tradeoff analysis and security analysis—require systematic exploration of potentially huge model spaces, which further exacerbates the problem. Despite this present and urgent challenge, few techniques exist to support the systematic exploration of large model spaces. This paper introduces Parasol, an approach and accompanying tool suite, to improve the scalability of large-scale formal model space exploration. Parasol presents a novel parallel model space synthesis approach, backed with unsupervised learning to automatically derive domain knowledge, guiding a balanced partitioning of the model space. This allows Parasol to synthesize the models in each partition in parallel, significantly reducing synthesis time and making large-scale systematic model space exploration for real-world systems more tractable. Our empirical results corroborate that Parasol substantially reduces (by 460% on average) the time required for model space synthesis, compared to state-of-the-art model space synthesis techniques relying on both incremental and parallel constraint solving technologies as well as competing, non-learning-based partitioning methods

Model Reka Bentuk Konseptual Operasian Storan Data Bagi Aplikasi Kepintaran Perniagaan

The development of business intelligence (BI) applications, involving of data sources, Data Warehouse (DW), Data Mart (DM) and Operational Data Store (ODS), imposes a major challenge to BI developers. This is mainly due to the lack of established models, guidelines and techniques in the development process as compared to system development in the discipline of software engineering. Furthermore, the present BI applications emphasize on the development of strategic information in contrast to operational and tactical. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to propose a conceptual design model for BI applications using ODS (CoDMODS). Through expert validation, the proposed conceptual design model that was developed by means of design science research approach, was found to satisfy nine quality model dimensions, which are, easy to understand, covers clear steps, is relevant and timeless, demonstrates flexibility, scalability, accuracy, completeness and consistency. Additionally, the two prototypes that were developed based on CoDMODS for water supply service (iUBIS) and telecommunication maintenance (iPMS) recorded a high usability average min value of 5.912 using Computer System Usability Questionnaire (CSUQ) instrument. The outcomes of this study, particularly the proposed model, contribute to the analysis and design method for the development of the operational and tactical information in BI applications. The model can be referred as guidelines by BI developers. Furthermore, the prototypes that were developed in the case studies can assist the organizations in using quality information for business operations

FORTEST: Formal methods and testing

Formal methods have traditionally been used for specification and development of software. However there are potential benefits for the testing stage as well. The panel session associated with this paper explores the usefulness or otherwise of formal methods in various contexts for improving software testing. A number of different possibilities for the use of formal methods are explored and questions raised. The contributors are all members of the UK FORTEST Network on formal methods and testing. Although the authors generally believe that formal methods are useful in aiding the testing process, this paper is intended to provoke discussion. Dissenters are encouraged to put their views to the panel or individually to the authors