25 research outputs found
CodeLMSec Benchmark: Systematically Evaluating and Finding Security Vulnerabilities in Black-Box Code Language Models
Large language models (LLMs) for automatic code generation have achieved
breakthroughs in several programming tasks. Their advances in competition-level
programming problems have made them an essential pillar of AI-assisted pair
programming, and tools such as GitHub Copilot have emerged as part of the daily
programming workflow used by millions of developers. The training data for
these models is usually collected from the Internet (e.g., from open-source
repositories) and is likely to contain faults and security vulnerabilities.
This unsanitized training data can cause the language models to learn these
vulnerabilities and propagate them during the code generation procedure. While
these models have been extensively assessed for their ability to produce
functionally correct programs, there remains a lack of comprehensive
investigations and benchmarks addressing the security aspects of these models.
In this work, we propose a method to systematically study the security issues
of code language models to assess their susceptibility to generating vulnerable
code. To this end, we introduce the first approach to automatically find
generated code that contains vulnerabilities in black-box code generation
models. To achieve this, we present an approach to approximate inversion of the
black-box code generation models based on few-shot prompting. We evaluate the
effectiveness of our approach by examining code language models in generating
high-risk security weaknesses. Furthermore, we establish a collection of
diverse non-secure prompts for various vulnerability scenarios using our
method. This dataset forms a benchmark for evaluating and comparing the
security weaknesses in code language models.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figure
4U 1909+07: a well-hidden pearl
We present the first detailed spectral and timing analysis of the High Mass
X-ray Binary (HMXB) 4U 1909+07 with INTEGRAL and RXTE. 4U 1909+07 is detected
in the ISGRI 20-40 keV energy band with an average countrate of 2.6 cps. The
pulse period of ~604 sec is not stable, but changing erratically on timescales
of years. The pulse profile is strongly energy dependent: it shows a double
peaked structure at low energies, the secondary pulse decreases rapidly with
increasing energy and above 20 keV only the primary pulse is visible. This
evolution is consistent between PCA, HEXTE, and ISGRI. The phase averaged
spectrum can be well described by the sum of a photoabsorbed power law with a
cutoff at high energies and a blackbody component. To investigate the pulse
profile, we performed phase resolved spectral analysis. We find that the
changing spectrum can be best described with a variation of the folding energy.
We rule out a correlation between the black body component and the continuum
variation and discuss possible accretion geometries.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in A&A Sect.
Be X-ray Binary Outburst Zoo II
We have continued our recently started systematic study of Be X-ray binary (BeXRB) outbursts. Specifically, we are developing a catalogue of outbursts including their basic properties based on nearly all available X-ray all-sky-monitors. These properties are derived by fitting asymmetric Gaussians to the outburst lightcurves. This model describes most of the outbursts covered by our preliminary catalogue well; only 13% of all datasets show more complex outburst shapes. Analyzing the basic properties, we reveal a strong correlation between the outburst length and the reached peak flux. As an example, we discuss possible models describing the observed correlation in EXO 2030+375
Association of mitochondrial DNA copy number with metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes in 14 176 individuals
Background
Mitochondria play an important role in cellular metabolism, and their dysfunction is postulated to be involved in metabolic disturbances. Mitochondrial DNA is present in multiple copies per cell. The quantification of mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNA-CN) might be used to assess mitochondrial dysfunction.
Objectives
We aimed to investigate the cross-sectional association of mtDNA-CN with type 2 diabetes and the potential mediating role of metabolic syndrome.
Methods
We examined 4812 patients from the German Chronic Kidney Disease (GCKD) study and 9364 individuals from the Cooperative Health Research in South Tyrol (CHRIS) study. MtDNA-CN was measured in whole blood using a plasmid-normalized qPCR-based assay.
Results
In both studies, mtDNA-CN showed a significant correlation with most metabolic syndrome parameters: mtDNA-CN decreased with increasing number of metabolic syndrome components. Furthermore, individuals with low mtDNA-CN had significantly higher odds of metabolic syndrome (OR = 1.025; 95% CI = 1.011–1.039, P = 3.19 × 10−4, for each decrease of 10 mtDNA copies) and type 2 diabetes (OR = 1.027; 95% CI = 1.012–1.041; P = 2.84 × 10−4) in a model adjusted for age, sex, smoking and kidney function in the meta-analysis of both studies. Mediation analysis revealed that the association of mtDNA-CN with type 2 diabetes was mainly mediated by waist circumference in the GCKD study (66%) and by several metabolic syndrome parameters, especially body mass index and triglycerides, in the CHRIS study (41%).
Conclusions
Our data show an inverse association of mtDNA-CN with higher risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. A major part of the total effect of mtDNA-CN on type 2 diabetes is mediated by obesity parameters
Simulation of cyclotron resonant scattering features
X-ray binary systems consisting of a mass donating optical star and a highly magnetized neutron star, under the right circumstances, show quantum mechanical absorption features in the observed spectra called cyclotron resonant scattering features (CRSFs). We have developed a simulation to model CRSFs using Monte Carlo methods. We calculate Green’s tables which can be used to imprint CRSFs to arbitrary X-ray continua. Our simulation keeps track of scattering parameters of individual photons, extends the number of variable parameters of previous works, and allows for more flexible geometries. Here we focus on the influence of bulk velocity of the accreted matter on the CRSF line shapes and positions
Simulation of cyclotron resonant scattering features
X-ray binary systems consisting of a mass donating optical star and a highly magnetized neutron star, under the right circumstances, show quantum mechanical absorption features in the observed spectra called cyclotron resonant scattering features (CRSFs). We have developed a simulation to model CRSFs using Monte Carlo methods. We calculate Green’s tables which can be used to imprint CRSFs to arbitrary X-ray continua. Our simulation keeps track of scattering parameters of individual photons, extends the number of variable parameters of previous works, and allows for more flexible geometries. Here we focus on the influence of bulk velocity of the accreted matter on the CRSF line shapes and positions