Copying codes from Stack Overflow leads to GitHub vulnerabilities

Very often, when the developers have a problem with him code they get used to copy-pasting code snippets from the popular Stack Overflow forum to resolve it.

However a new one research recently conducted, entitled "An Empirical Study of C ++ Vulnerabilities in Crowd-Sourced Code Examples", indicates that this practice raises serious issues security.

Copying codes can lead to vulnerabilities

Looking at more than 72.000 C ++ code snippets taken from Stack Overflow's 1.325 posts, the research authors discovered 69 vulnerable 29 snippets of different types.

Although this number may seem small, compared to the enormous amount of work on GitHub, the 69 vulnerabilities discovered, appeared in 2.589 GitHub repos, and this is certainly worrying.

Although the researchers they took responsibility for notifying project developers on GitHub, only some of them wanted to fix the deficiencies that were common CWEs (Common Weakness Enumeration).

The purpose of the research was to describe how the code passes through Stack Overflow on GitHub and how using codes without careful control can lead to possible vulnerabilities in software.

For this study, the team chose to focus on C ++-based projects. Most of the CWEs found were CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation), CWE-754 (Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions) and CWE-1006 (Bad Coding Practices).

Incorrect use of the platform

The Stack Overflow forum is mainly used for questions and answers. Many developers who submit code snippets as a solution may not have a proper understanding of code security.

Which means that using these excerpts is no better. It is preferable for a developer to devote a little more time and effort to adopt safer practices programming.

But there is a solution

Many developers have a hard time leaving Stack Overflow completely. With this in mind, researchers have developed an extension Chrome, which can help determine the security of a code.

Installing it extension, checks the code being copied, compared to the CWE database, and the developer is notified if the snippet of the code contains known defects.

The extension is scheduled for release soon. Stay short.