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arXiv · 2308.02310

MASC: A Tool for Mutation-Based Evaluation of Static Crypto-API Misuse Detectors

Amit Seal Ami·Syed Yusuf Ahmed·Radowan Mahmud Redoy·Nathan Cooper·Kaushal Kafle·Kevin Moran·Denys Poshyvanyk·Adwait Nadkarni
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Abstract

While software engineers are optimistically adopting crypto-API misuse detectors (or crypto-detectors) in their software development cycles, this momentum must be accompanied by a rigorous understanding of crypto-detectors' effectiveness at finding crypto-API misuses in practice. This demo paper presents the technical details and usage scenarios of our tool, namely Mutation Analysis for evaluating Static Crypto-API misuse detectors (MASC). We developed $12$ generalizable, usage based mutation operators and three mutation scopes, namely Main Scope, Similarity Scope, and Exhaustive Scope, which can be used to expressively instantiate compilable variants of the crypto-API misuse cases. Using MASC, we evaluated nine major crypto-detectors, and discovered $19$ unique, undocumented flaws. We designed MASC to be configurable and user-friendly; a user can configure the parameters to change the nature of generated mutations. Furthermore, MASC comes with both Command Line Interface and Web-based front-end, making it practical for users of different levels of expertise.

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Amit Seal Ami, Syed Yusuf Ahmed, Radowan Mahmud Redoy, Nathan Cooper, Kaushal Kafle, Kevin Moran, Denys Poshyvanyk, Adwait Nadkarni. 2023-08-04. MASC: A Tool for Mutation-Based Evaluation of Static Crypto-API Misuse Detectors. https://doi.org/10.1145/3611643.3613099

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