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Password managers are important tools that enable us to use stronger passwords, freeing us from the cognitive burden of remembering them. Despite this, there are still many users who do not fully trust password managers. In this paper, we…
Software security is of utmost importance for most software systems. Developers must systematically select, plan, design, implement, and especially, maintain and evolve security features -- functionalities to mitigate attacks or protect…
A common assumption suggests that individuals tend to work with others who are similar to them. However, studies on team working and ability of the group to solve complex problems highlight that diversity plays a critical role during…
Previous studies have shown that developers regularly seek advice on online forums to resolve their cryptography issues. We investigated whether users who are active in cryptography discussions also use cryptography in practice. We…
GitHub plays a critical role in modern software supply chains, making its security an important research concern. Existing studies have primarily focused on CI/CD automation, collaboration patterns, and community management, while abuse…
Commit signing is a principal mechanism for verifying the origin of code in software supply chains. Security frameworks treat it as a core trust signal, assuming developers sign their commits consistently with keys they control and keep…
Researchers have extensively explored how password creation policies influence the security and usability of user-chosen passwords, producing evidence-based policy guidelines. However, for web authentication to improve in practice, websites…
GitHub is the largest host of open source software on the Internet. This large, freely accessible database has attracted the attention of practitioners and researchers alike. But as GitHub's growth continues, it is becoming increasingly…
Each year, thousands of software vulnerabilities are discovered and reported to the public. Unpatched known vulnerabilities are a significant security risk. It is imperative that software vendors quickly provide patches once vulnerabilities…
Over the years security experts in the field of Information Technology have had a tough time in making passwords secure. This paper studies and takes a careful look at this issue from the angle of philosophy and cognitive science. We have…
Storing user-specific configuration files in a "dotfiles" repository is a common practice among software developers, with hundreds of thousands choosing to publicly host their repositories on GitHub. This practice not only provides…
Context: Privacy legislation has impacted the way software systems are developed, prompting practitioners to update their implementations. Specifically, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy…
Context: Technical Debt needs to be managed to avoid disastrous consequences, and investigating developers' habits concerning technical debt management is invaluable information in software development. Objective: This study aims to…
Password users frequently employ passwords that are too simple, or they just reuse passwords for multiple websites. A common complaint is that utilizing secure passwords is too difficult. One possible solution to this problem is to use a…
Developers use and contribute to repositories on GitHub. Documentation present in the repositories serves as an important source by helping developers to understand, maintain and contribute to the project. Currently, documentation in a…
Large-scale password data breaches are becoming increasingly commonplace, which has enabled researchers to produce a substantial body of password security research utilising real-world password datasets, which often contain numbers of…
JavaScript has been consistently among the most popular programming languages in the past decade. However, its dynamic, weakly-typed, and asynchronous nature can make it challenging to write maintainable code for developers without in-depth…
Are malicious repositories hiding under the educational label in GitHub? Recent studies have identified collections of GitHub repositories hosting malware source code with notable collaboration among the developers. Thus, analyzing GitHub…
Usable and secure authentication on the web and beyond is mission-critical. While password-based authentication is still widespread, users have trouble dealing with potentially hundreds of online accounts and their passwords. Alternatives…
As language models are increasingly deployed as autonomous agents in high-stakes settings, ensuring that they reliably follow user-defined rules has become a critical safety concern. To this end, we study whether language models exhibit…