ICSE 2024
Fri 12 - Sun 21 April 2024 Lisbon, Portugal
Fri 19 Apr 2024 11:00 - 11:15 at Eugénio de Andrade - Security 4 Chair(s): Liliana Pasquale

Code generation tools driven by artificial intelligence have recently become more popular due to advancements in deep learning and natural language processing that have increased their capabilities. The proliferation of these tools may be a double-edged sword because while they can increase developer productivity by making it easier to write code, research has shown that they can also generate insecure code. In this paper, we perform a user-centered evaluation GitHub’s Copilot to better understand its strengths and weaknesses with respect to code security. We conduct a user study where participants solve programming problems (with and without Copilot assistance) that have potentially vulnerable solutions. The main goal of the user study is to determine how the use of Copilot affects participants’ security performance. In our set of participants (n=25), we find that access to Copilot accompanies a more secure solution when tackling harder problems. For the easier problem, we observe no effect of Copilot access on the security of solutions. We also observe no disproportionate impact of Copilot use on particular kinds of vulnerabilities. Our results indicate that there are potential security benefits to using Copilot, but more research is warranted on the effects of the use of code generation tools on technically complex problems with security requirements.

Fri 19 Apr

Displayed time zone: Lisbon change

11:00 - 12:30
Security 4Research Track / Software Engineering in Practice at Eugénio de Andrade
Chair(s): Liliana Pasquale University College Dublin & Lero
11:00
15m
Talk
A User-centered Security Evaluation of Copilot
Research Track
Owura Asare University of Waterloo, Mei Nagappan University of Waterloo, N. Asokan University of Waterloo
11:15
15m
Talk
Identifying Affected Libraries and Their Ecosystems for Open Source Software Vulnerabilities
Research Track
Susheng Wu Fudan University, Wenyan Song Fudan University, Kaifeng Huang Tongji University, Bihuan Chen Fudan University, Xin Peng Fudan University
11:30
15m
Talk
Understanding Transaction Bugs in Database Systems
Research Track
Ziyu Cui Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wensheng Dou Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yu Gao Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, Dong Wang Institute of software, Chinese academy of sciences, Jiansen Song Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yingying Zheng Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tao Wang Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences, Rui Yang Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kang Xu University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, Yixin Hu Sun Yat-sen University, Jun Wei Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Chongqing School, Tao Huang Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences
Pre-print
11:45
15m
Talk
When Contracts Meets Crypto: Exploring Developers' Struggles with Ethereum Cryptographic APIs
Research Track
Jiashuo Zhang Peking University, China, Jiachi Chen Sun Yat-sen University, Zhiyuan Wan Zhejiang University, Ting Chen University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Jianbo Gao Peking University, Zhong Chen
12:00
15m
Talk
Industrial Challenges in Secure Continuous Development
Software Engineering in Practice
Fabiola Moyón Siemens Technology and Technical University of Munich, Florian Angermeir fortiss GmbH, Daniel Mendez Blekinge Institute of Technology and fortiss
Pre-print
12:15
15m
Talk
Automated Security Findings Management: A Case Study in Industrial DevOps
Software Engineering in Practice
Markus Voggenreiter Siemens Technology / LMU Munich, Florian Angermeir fortiss GmbH, Fabiola Moyón Siemens Technology and Technical University of Munich, Ulrich Schöpp fortiss GmbH, Pierre Bonvin Munich University of Applied Sciences
Pre-print