This report provides a detailed analysis of the usage of Flawfinder, a widely adopted static analysis tool in the field of computer security, to assess the potential presence of vulnerabilities in three C language projects available on GitHub which are characterized by a significant number of stars.
Flawfinder is a tool specifically designed to identify programming flaws in C and C++ source code, aiming to detect known security vulnerabilities. It operates based on a database of code patterns that correspond to common vulnerabilities such as buffer overflow, race conditions, and lack of input validation.
It is important to note that Flawfinder's accuracy is not infallible, and there may be situations where it reports potential security issues that are not actually present in the code. These false positives can occur due to complexities in static analysis, the tool's inability to recognize certain code patterns, or other limitations of the underlying algorithm.
The analysis process involved the following steps:
- Cloning the GitHub repositories of the three projects.
- Preparing the necessary environment for executing Flawfinder.
- Running Flawfinder on the source code of each project.
- Collecting and analyzing the generated reports.
The analysis performed by Flawfinder revealed several potential security vulnerabilities across the three projects. The vulnerabilities detected include but are not limited to buffer overflows, race conditions, and input validation issues. Each vulnerability has been assigned a severity level based on the potential impact it may have on the security of the projects.
For more details, please refer to the full analysis report included in this repository.
- Flawfinder: https://dwheeler.com/flawfinder/