| # Ethical Considerations |
|
|
| AppSecBench intentionally contains **vulnerable code**. This document explains how the data is |
| constructed and the safeguards around its release. |
|
|
| ## What the data is |
|
|
| - **Synthetic and minimal.** Every vulnerable snippet isolates one weakness in a few lines. It is |
| not extracted from, and does not reproduce, any real application, product, or copyrighted source. |
| - **Non-weaponized.** Exploit sketches are illustrative proof-of-concept patterns (e.g. a sample |
| malicious URL or payload shape), not turnkey exploits, tooling, or targeting information. |
| - **Educational framing.** Each record pairs the vulnerable code with secure code, an explanation, |
| and references to authoritative guidance (OWASP, CWE, ASVS). |
|
|
| ## Why release it |
|
|
| The security community needs open, reproducible benchmarks to (a) measure and improve LLM secure- |
| code capability, (b) benchmark SAST/secret-scanning/IaC-scanning tools on equal footing, and |
| (c) support defensive academic research. Withholding such data would cede evaluation to opaque, |
| closed benchmarks. |
|
|
| ## Safeguards |
|
|
| - The dataset is MIT-licensed for **defensive** use (research, education, tool evaluation, training). |
| - AI/LLM cases (prompt injection, RAG, MCP, agent security) demonstrate *defensive* controls, not |
| attack tooling. |
| - Infrastructure cases show misconfiguration **and** the corrected, hardened configuration side by |
| side. |
| - The dataset does **not** contain working exploits against third parties, credential material |
| beyond obvious placeholders (`sk_live_9f8a...`), or instructions for unauthorized access. |
|
|
| ## Responsible use |
|
|
| - Do not use the vulnerable snippets to attack systems you are not authorized to test. |
| - When training models, ensure the secure-code pairs are presented with their explanations so the |
| model learns *remediation*, not mere vulnerability replication. |
| - Cite the dataset and link to this document when publishing results. |
|
|
| ## Contact |
|
|
| Report concerns via the repository's SECURITY.md disclosure process. |
|
|
