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On the effects of program slicing for vulnerability detection during code inspection.

Aurora Papotti¹, Katja Tuma¹, Fabio Massacci^1,2

¹Foundational Security, Afdeling Informatica, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, NL the Netherlands.

Empirical Software Engineering

|April 8, 2025

Summary

Fault localization slicing aids developers in finding security vulnerabilities. Method-level slicing helps identify vulnerable code areas, improving detection rates, especially when considering a small context window.

Keywords:

code review controlled experiment program comprehension program slicing vulnerability

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Area of Science:

Software Engineering
Cybersecurity
Empirical Software Engineering

Background:

Fault localization techniques like slicing are crucial for debugging and program comprehension.
The empirical effectiveness of slicing in human code inspection for vulnerability detection remains under-explored.
Existing research lacks a clear definition of correctly identified vulnerable lines during code review.

Purpose of the Study:

To define criteria for accurately identifying vulnerable lines in code.
To investigate if method-level slicing enhances code reviewers' ability to detect security vulnerabilities.
To evaluate the impact of slicing on vulnerability detection effectiveness in software.

Main Methods:

A novel approach defining correctly identified lines using a δ-neighborhood (context size) was proposed.
A multi-year controlled experiment (2017-2023) involved 236 MSc students in security courses.
Participants identified vulnerabilities in original or sliced Java files from Apache Tomcat, using intra-procedural thin slicing for reduced code review.

Main Results:

Slicing significantly increased the likelihood of participants finding 'something' (any vulnerable lines) versus 'nothing'.
For exact line matching (δ=0), slicing showed no statistical advantage over analyzing original files for those who found vulnerabilities.
With a broader context (δ=3), slicing improved vulnerability detection compared to analyzing original files.

Conclusions:

Method-level slicing is beneficial for improving the detection of security vulnerabilities during code inspection.
The effectiveness of slicing is context-dependent, with larger neighborhood sizes (δ=3) yielding better results.
Further research with experienced developers is needed to generalize these findings.