| # Known Limitations |
|
|
| AppSecBench is a strong but *bounded* benchmark. Be aware of these limitations when interpreting |
| results. |
|
|
| ## Coverage & realism |
|
|
| - **Synthetic, isolated snippets.** Each case demonstrates one weakness in a few lines. Real code |
| interleaves multiple concerns; high scores here do not guarantee strength on large, messy |
| codebases. |
| - **Not exhaustive.** 34 vulnerability classes are covered; many CWE entries and emerging weakness |
| types (e.g. some supply-chain, post-quantum, or domain-specific issues) are not yet represented. |
| - **Framework breadth is curated.** Only the frameworks in the supported list appear; other |
| popular stacks (e.g. Rails, Flask alternatives) are not covered in v1.0.0. |
| - **AI/LLM cases are conceptual.** Prompt-injection / RAG / MCP / agent examples are illustrative |
| of the *control* (isolation, scoping, authz, sandboxing), not a full agent harness. |
|
|
| ## Tooling & checks |
|
|
| - **Heuristic syntax checks for some languages.** Rust, C#, Java, Kotlin, Swift, PHP, C/C++ are |
| validated with delimiter-balance heuristics when their compiler is absent; a "PASS" on those is |
| a balance check, not a guarantee of compilability. (Python/JS/TS/Go/YAML/Bash use real toolchains |
| when installed.) |
| - **CVSS reflects the archetype, not a specific deployment.** Scores use dominant realistic |
| exploitability/impact vectors; a given app's actual risk may differ. |
|
|
| ## Evaluation |
|
|
| - **The reference grader is transparent but shallow.** `scripts/evaluate.py` uses keyword/format |
| matching. For publication-grade results, pair it with an LLM judge or human review; the rubric |
| weights are provided for that purpose. |
| - **Severity priors are estimates.** `expected_false_positive_probability` / |
| `expected_false_negative_probability` encode difficulty-based priors, not empirically measured |
| rates. |
|
|
| ## Suggested improvements for v1.1+ |
|
|
| - Grow to 1,000+ records with broader language/framework coverage (Rails, Vue, Angular, Scala). |
| - Add multi-file / multi-function cases and end-to-end mini-apps. |
| - Add an LLM-judge harness and inter-rater reliability on a labeled sample. |
| - Add executable test oracles (do the secure snippets actually pass a security test?). |
| - Expand AI/LLM coverage with full agent/MCP server fixtures. |
| - Add license/PII redaction checks across more ecosystems. |
|
|
| See `CHANGELOG.md` for the version plan. |
|
|
