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Publicações

Publicações por Alexandra Sofia Mendes

2020

Evaluating the Accuracy of Password Strength Meters using Off-The-Shelf Guessing Attacks

Autores
Pereira, D; Ferreira, JF; Mendes, A;

Publicação
ISSRE Workshops

Abstract
In this paper we measure the accuracy of password strength meters (PSMs) using password guessing resistance against off-the-shelf guessing attacks. We consider 13 PSMs, 5 different attack tools, and a random selection of 60,000 passwords extracted from three different datasets of real-world password leaks. Our results show that a significant percentage of passwords classified as strong were cracked, thus suggesting that current password strength estimation methods can be improved.

2021

Exploring Usable Security to Improve the Impact of Formal Verification: A Research Agenda

Autores
Carreira, C; Ferreira, JF; Mendes, A; Christin, N;

Publicação
AppFM@FM

Abstract
As software becomes more complex and assumes an even greater role in our lives, formal verification is set to become the gold standard in securing software systems into the future, since it can guarantee the absence of errors and entire classes of attack. Recent advances in formal verification are being used to secure everything from unmanned drones to the internet. At the same time, the usable security research community has made huge progress in improving the usability of security products and end-users comprehension of security issues. However, there have been no human-centered studies focused on the impact of formal verification on the use and adoption of formally verified software products. We propose a research agenda to fill this gap and to contribute with the first collection of studies on people's mental models on formal verification and associated security and privacy guarantees and threats. The proposed research has the potential to increase the adoption of more secure products and it can be directly used by the security and formal methods communities to create more effective and secure software tools.

2021

Formal Methods Teaching - 4th International Workshop and Tutorial, FMTea 2021, Virtual Event, November 21, 2021, Proceedings

Autores
Ferreira, JF; Mendes, A; Menghi, C;

Publicação
FMTea

Abstract

2021

Automatic Repair of Java Code with Timing Side-Channel Vulnerabilities

Autores
Lima, R; Ferreira, JF; Mendes, A;

Publicação
2021 36TH IEEE/ACM INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AUTOMATED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING WORKSHOPS (ASEW 2021)

Abstract
Vulnerability detection and repair is a demanding and expensive part of the software development process. As such, there has been an effort to develop new and better ways to automatically detect and repair vulnerabilities. DifFuzz is a state-of-the-art tool for automatic detection of timing side-channel vulnerabilities, a type of vulnerability that is particularly difficult to detect and correct. Despite recent progress made with tools such as DifFuzz, work on tools capable of automatically repairing timing side-channel vulnerabilities is scarce. In this paper, we propose DifFuzzAR, a new tool for automatic repair of timing side-channel vulnerabilities in Java code. The tool works in conjunction with DifFuzz and it is able to repair 56% of the vulnerabilities identified in DifFuzz's dataset. The results show that the tool can indeed automatically correct timing side-channel vulnerabilities, being more effective with those that are controlflow based.

2021

EcoAndroid: An Android Studio Plugin for Developing Energy-Efficient Java Mobile Applications

Autores
Ribeiro, A; Ferreira, JF; Mendes, A;

Publicação
2021 IEEE 21ST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOFTWARE QUALITY, RELIABILITY AND SECURITY (QRS 2021)

Abstract
Mobile devices have become indispensable in our daily life and reducing the energy consumed by them has become essential. However, developing energy-efficient mobile applications is not a trivial task. To address this problem, we present EcoAndroid, an Android Studio plugin that automatically applies energy patterns to Java source code. It currently supports ten different cases of energy-related refactorings, divided over five energy patterns taken from the literature. We used EcoAndroid to analyze 100 Java mobile applications (approximate to 1.5M LOC) and we found that 35 of the projects had a total of 95 energy code smells. EcoAndroid was able to automatically refactor all the code smells identified.

2022

Verified Password Generation from Password Composition Policies

Autores
Grilo, M; Campos, J; Ferreira, JF; Almeida, JB; Mendes, A;

Publicação
INTEGRATED FORMAL METHODS, IFM 2022

Abstract
Password managers (PMs) are important tools that enable the use of stronger passwords, freeing users from the cognitive burden of remembering them. Despite this, there are still many users who do not fully trust PMs. In this paper, we focus on a feature that most PMs offer that might impact the user's trust, which is the process of generating a random password. We present three of the most commonly used algorithms and we propose a solution for a formally verified reference implementation of a password generation algorithm. We use EasyCrypt to specify and verify our reference implementation. In addition, we present a proof-of-concept prototype that extends Bitwarden to only generate compliant passwords, solving a frequent users' frustration with PMs. This demonstrates that our formally verified component can be integrated into an existing (and widely used) PM.

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