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Fri 2 May 2025 15:15 - 15:22 at 206 plus 208 - Human and Social 4 Chair(s): Liliana Pasquale

Identifying security issues early is encouraged to reduce the latent negative impacts on the software systems. Code review is a widely-used method that allows developers to manually inspect modified code, catching security issues during a software development cycle. However, existing code review studies often focus on known vulnerabilities, neglecting coding weaknesses, which can introduce real-world security issues that are more visible through code review. The practices of code reviews in identifying such coding weaknesses are not yet fully investigated. To better understand this, we conducted an empirical case study in two large open-source projects, OpenSSL and PHP. Based on 135,560 code review comments, we found that reviewers raised security concerns in 35 out of 40 coding weakness categories. Surprisingly, some coding weaknesses related to past vulnerabilities, such as memory errors and resource management, were discussed less often than the vulnerabilities. Developers attempted to address raised security concerns in many cases (39%-41%), but a substantial portion was merely acknowledged (30%-36%), and some went unfixed due to disagreements about solutions (18%-20%). This highlights that coding weaknesses can slip through code review even when identified. Our findings suggest that reviewers can identify various coding weaknesses leading to security issues during code reviews. However, these results also reveal shortcomings in current code review practices, indicating the need for more effective mechanisms or support for increasing awareness of security issue management in code reviews.

Fri 2 May

Displayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change

14:00 - 15:30
Human and Social 4Journal-first Papers / SE in Society (SEIS) / SE In Practice (SEIP) / Research Track at 206 plus 208
Chair(s): Liliana Pasquale University College Dublin & Lero
14:00
15m
Talk
Beyond the Comfort Zone: Emerging Solutions to Overcome Challenges in Integrating LLMs into Software Products
SE In Practice (SEIP)
Nadia Nahar Carnegie Mellon University, Christian Kästner Carnegie Mellon University, Jenna L. Butler Microsoft Research, Chris Parnin Microsoft, Thomas Zimmermann University of California, Irvine, Christian Bird Microsoft Research
14:15
15m
Talk
Follow-Up Attention: An Empirical Study of Developer and Neural Model Code Exploration
Journal-first Papers
Matteo Paltenghi University of Stuttgart, Rahul Pandita GitHub, Inc., Austin Henley Carnegie Mellon University, Albert Ziegler XBow
14:30
15m
Talk
Do Developers Adopt Green Architectural Tactics for ML-Enabled Systems? A Mining Software Repository StudyArtifact-ReusableArtifact-AvailableArtifact-Functional
SE in Society (SEIS)
Vincenzo De Martino University of Salerno, Silverio Martínez-Fernández UPC-BarcelonaTech, Fabio Palomba University of Salerno
Pre-print
14:45
15m
Talk
Accessibility Issues in Ad-Driven Web ApplicationsArtifact-FunctionalArtifact-AvailableArtifact-Reusable
Research Track
Abdul Haddi Amjad Virginia Tech, Muhammad Danish Virginia Tech, Bless Jah Virginia Tech, Muhammad Ali Gulzar Virginia Tech
15:00
15m
Talk
A Bot-based Approach to Manage Codes of Conduct in Open-Source Projects
SE in Society (SEIS)
Sergio Cobos IN3 - UOC, Javier Luis Cánovas Izquierdo Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Pre-print
15:15
7m
Talk
Toward Effective Secure Code Reviews: An Empirical Study of Security-Related Coding WeaknessesSecurity
Journal-first Papers
Wachiraphan (Ping) Charoenwet University of Melbourne, Patanamon Thongtanunam University of Melbourne, Thuan Pham University of Melbourne, Christoph Treude Singapore Management University
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