The Bugs Framework (BF): A Structured Approach to Express Bugs

Published

October 13, 2016

Author(s)

Irena Bojanova, Paul E. Black, Yaacov Yesha, Yan Wu

Abstract

To achieve higher levels of assurance for digital systems, we need to answer questions such as, does this software have bugs of these critical classes? Do these two tools generally find the same set of bugs, or different, complimentary sets? Can we guarantee that a new technique discovers all problems of this type? To answer such questions, we need a vastly improved way to describe classes of vulnerabilities and chains of failures. This paper presents a descriptive framework that will lift the current realm of best efforts and useful heuristics. Our framework includes rigorous definitions and (static) characteristics of bug classes, along with their related dynamic properties, such as proximate, secondary, and tertiary causes and consequences (CCC), and sites. The paper discusses the buffer overflow class, the injection class, and the interaction frequency control class, and provides examples of applying our taxonomy to describe particular vulnerabilities.

Proceedings Title

IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability & Security (QRS 2016)

Conference Dates

August 1-3, 2016

Conference Location

Viena, AT

Conference Title

2016 IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/QRS.2016.29

Local Download

Keywords

software weaknesses, bug taxonomy, software vulnerabilities, attacks

Citation

Bojanova, I. , Black, P. , Yesha, Y. and Wu, Y. (2016), The Bugs Framework (BF): A Structured Approach to Express Bugs, IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability & Security (QRS 2016), Viena, AT, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/QRS.2016.29, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=920564 (Accessed April 26, 2024)