41 research outputs found
A taxonomy of approaches for integrating attack awareness in applications
Software applications are subject to an increasing number of attacks, resulting in data breaches and financial damage. Many solutions have been considered to help mitigate these attacks, such as the integration of attack-awareness techniques. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy illustrating how existing attack awareness techniques can be integrated into applications. This work provides a guide for security researchers and developers, aiding them when choosing the approach which best fits the needs of their application
Eight Lightweight Usable Security Principles for Developers
We propose eight usable security principles that provide software developers with a lightweight framework to help them integrate security in a user-friendly way. These principles should help developers who must weigh usability and security tradeoffs to facilitate adoption
Fighting Against XSS Attacks. A Usability Evaluation of OWASP ESAPI Output Encoding
Cross Site Scripting (XSS) is one of the most critical vulnerabilities exist in web applications. XSS can be prevented by encoding untrusted data that are loaded into browser content of web applications. Security Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) such as OWASP ESAPI provide output encoding functionalities for programmers to use to protect their applications from XSS attacks. However, XSS still being ranked as one of the most critical vulnerabilities in web applications suggests that programmers are not effectively using those APIs to encode untrusted data. Therefore, we conducted an experimental study with 10 programmers where they attempted to fix XSS vulnerabilities of a web application using the output encoding functionality of OWASP ESAPI. Results revealed 3 types of mistakes that programmers made which resulted in them failing to fix the application by removing XSS vulnerabilities. We also identified 16 usability issues of OWASP ESAPI. We identified that some of these usability issues as the reason for mistakes that programmers made. Based on these results, we provided suggestions on how the usability of output encoding APIs should be improved to give a better experience to programmers
Why Do Developers Get Password Storage Wrong? A Qualitative Usability Study
Passwords are still a mainstay of various security systems, as well as the
cause of many usability issues. For end-users, many of these issues have been
studied extensively, highlighting problems and informing design decisions for
better policies and motivating research into alternatives. However, end-users
are not the only ones who have usability problems with passwords! Developers
who are tasked with writing the code by which passwords are stored must do so
securely. Yet history has shown that this complex task often fails due to human
error with catastrophic results. While an end-user who selects a bad password
can have dire consequences, the consequences of a developer who forgets to hash
and salt a password database can lead to far larger problems. In this paper we
present a first qualitative usability study with 20 computer science students
to discover how developers deal with password storage and to inform research
into aiding developers in the creation of secure password systems