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The increasing popularity of certain programming languages has spurred the creation of ecosystem-specific package repositories and package managers. Such repositories (e.g., npm, PyPI) serve as public databases that users can query to…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-10-09 Piergiorgio Ladisa , Merve Sahin , Serena Elisa Ponta , Marco Rosa , Matias Martinez , Olivier Barais

Reusable software components, typically distributed as packages, are a central paradigm of modern software development. The JavaScript ecosystem serves as a prime example, offering millions of packages with their use being promoted as…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-01-26 Ben Swierzy , Marc Ohm , Michael Meier

With the rise of the library ecosystem (such as NPM for JavaScript and PyPI for Python), a developer has access to a multitude of library packages that they can adopt as dependencies into their application.Prior work has found that these…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-07-02 Supatsara Wattanakriengkrai , Christoph Treude , Raula Gaikovina Kula

Complex software systems have a network of dependencies. Developers often configure package managers (e.g., npm) to automatically update dependencies with each publication of new releases containing bug fixes and new features. When a…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-01-24 Daniel Venturini , Filipe Roseiro Cogo , Ivanilton Polato , Marco A Gerosa , Igor Scaliante Wiese

The high complexity of modern software supply chains necessitates tools such as Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) to manage component dependencies, and Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools to identify vulnerabilities. While there…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-07-29 Howell Xia , Jonah Gluck , Sevval Simsek , David Sastre Medina , David Starobinski

Popular (re)use of third-party open-source software (OSS) is evidence of the impact of hosting repositories like maven on software development today. Updating libraries is crucial, with recent studies highlighting the associated…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2017-09-15 Raula Gaikovina Kula , Coen De Roover , Daniel M. German , Takashi Ishio , Katsuro Inoue

As modern software extensively uses free open source packages as dependencies, developers have to regularly pull in new third-party code through frequent updates. However, without a proper review of every incoming change, vulnerable and…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2022-11-08 Nasif Imtiaz , Laurie Williams

This study investigates vulnerabilities in dependencies of sampled open-source software (OSS) projects, the relationship between these and overall project security, and how developers' behaviors and practices influence their mitigation.…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-08-27 Janislley Oliveira de Sousa , Bruno Carvalho de Farias , Eddie Batista de Lima Filho , Lucas Carvalho Cordeiro

Although using third-party libraries is common practice when writing software, vulnerabilities may be found even in well-known libraries. Detected vulnerabilities are often fixed quickly in the library code. The easiest way to include these…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-05-23 Kristiina Rahkema , Dietmar Pfahl

The NPM package repository contains over two million packages and serves tens of billions of downloads per-week. Nearly every single JavaScript application uses the NPM package manager to install packages from the NPM repository. NPM relies…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-04-04 Donald Pinckney , Federico Cassano , Arjun Guha , Jonathan Bell

Large language models (LLMs) have developed rapidly in recent years, revolutionizing various fields. Despite their widespread success, LLMs heavily rely on external code dependencies from package management systems, creating a complex and…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-09-01 Shuhan Liu , Xing Hu , Xin Xia , David Lo , Xiaohu Yang

Open-Source Projects and Libraries are being used in software development while also bearing multiple security vulnerabilities. This use of third party ecosystem creates a new kind of attack surface for a product in development. An…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2018-08-15 Lorenzo Neil , Sudip Mittal , Anupam Joshi

A risk in adopting third-party dependencies into an application is their potential to serve as a doorway for malicious code to be injected (most often unknowingly). While many initiatives from both industry and research communities focus on…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-09-11 Supatsara Wattanakriengkrai , Raula Gaikovina Kula , Christoph Treude , Kenichi Matsumoto

In software development, developers extensively utilize third-party libraries to avoid implementing existing functionalities. When a new third-party library vulnerability is disclosed, project maintainers need to determine whether their…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-12-18 Zirui Chen , Xing Hu , Xin Xia , Yi Gao , Tongtong Xu , David Lo , Xiaohu Yang

Library dependencies in software ecosystems play a crucial role in the development of software. As newer releases of these libraries are published, developers may opt to pin their dependencies to a particular version. While pinning may have…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-12-22 Vasudev Vikram , Yuvraj Agarwal , Rohan Padhye

This paper is an introductory discussion on the cause of open source software vulnerabilities, their importance in the cybersecurity ecosystem, and a selection of detection methods. A recent application security report showed 44% of…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2022-03-31 Stuart Millar

Popular adoption of third-party libraries for contemporary software development has led to the creation of large inter-dependency networks, where sustainability issues of a single library can have widespread network effects. Maintainers of…

As modern software development increasingly relies on reusable libraries and components, managing dependencies has become critical for ensuring software stability and security. However, challenges such as outdated dependencies, missed…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-04-01 Barisha Chowdhury , Md Fazle Rabbi , S. M. Mahedy Hasan , Minhaz F. Zibran

With the urgent need to secure supply chains among Open Source libraries, attention has focused on mitigating vulnerabilities detected in these libraries. Although awareness has improved recently, most studies still report delays in the…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-06-18 Ruksit Rojpaisarnkit , Hathaichanok Damrongsiri , Christoph Treude , Ali Ouni , Raula Gaikovina Kula

Reusing third-party libraries increases productivity and saves time and costs for developers. However, the downside is the presence of vulnerabilities in those libraries, which can lead to catastrophic outcomes. For instance, Apache Log4J…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-11-20 Yi Wen Heng , Zeyang Ma , Haoxiang Zhang , Zhenhao Li , Tse-Hsun , Chen