| # AppSecBench — Benchmark Methodology |
|
|
| ## 1. Objective |
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| Produce an original, reproducible, broadly-covered benchmark that measures whether an LLM or |
| security tool can **detect, classify, explain, score, and remediate** application-security |
| weaknesses across languages, frameworks, and difficulty levels. |
|
|
| ## 2. Design Principles |
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| - **Originality.** No record is copied from another dataset or from proprietary source. Each |
| vulnerable/secure pair is authored from scratch, inspired by public secure-coding knowledge |
| (OWASP Top 10 2021, OWASP API Security Top 10 2023, OWASP LLM Top 10 2025, CWE, ASVS). |
| - **Realism over trivia.** Every snippet reflects a realistic, idiomatic anti-pattern and its |
| idiomatic fix for the target language/framework — not a toy example. |
| - **Reproducibility.** Generation is deterministic (`seed=42`). `scripts/build.py` yields |
| byte-identical records on re-run. |
| - **Gradability.** Each record ships the "ground truth" a grader needs: CWE, OWASP (and |
| API/LLM mappings where relevant), expected severity, a CVSS 3.1 vector + computed base score, |
| an explanation, a fix description, secure code, and false-positive / false-negative priors. |
|
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| ## 3. Construction Pipeline |
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| 1. **Catalog** (`vuln_catalog.py`): 34 vulnerability archetypes × canonical CWE, OWASP 2021, |
| OWASP API 2023, OWASP LLM 2025, category, and public references. Defines which languages/ |
| frameworks are realistic per archetype (e.g. infra vulns → IaC; AI vulns → Python/JS/TS). |
| 2. **Generators** (`generators.py`): per-(vulnerability × language) functions emit a distinct |
| vulnerable snippet, a distinct secure snippet, and an exploit sketch. Variation pools |
| (endpoints, params, tables, functions) + a seeded RNG make each record's identifiers unique, |
| so no two records are duplicates while sharing a carefully authored secure pattern. |
| 3. **CVSS** (`cvss.py`): implements the official FIRST CVSS v3.1 base-score formulas. Each record |
| gets a mathematically consistent vector + score; `expected_cvss_score` is recomputed during |
| validation to guarantee consistency. |
| 4. **Build** (`build.py`): enumerates realistic (vuln × language × framework × difficulty) |
| combinations, samples a bounded number per (vuln × difficulty), assigns sequential |
| `ASB-000001` IDs, injects CVSS, and splits into train/validation/test with a fixed seed. |
| 5. **Validate** (`validate.py`): full QA suite (see §4). |
| 6. **Statistics** (`statistics.py`): distributions as CSV/JSON/Markdown. |
|
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| ## 4. Validation & QA |
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| `validate.py` enforces, per record: |
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| - JSON validity and **no duplicate `benchmark_id`**. |
| - All 33 required fields present and non-empty. |
| - Enums: `language`, `framework`, `expected_severity`, `difficulty`, `expected_confidence`, |
| `source_type`. |
| - `expected_cwe` matches `^CWE-\d+$`; `expected_owasp` matches `^A\d{2}:2021$`; API/LLM mappings |
| format-checked when present. |
| - `expected_cvss` matches `^CVSS:3.1/...$` and its **recomputed** base score equals |
| `expected_cvss_score` (±0.05). |
| - Reference URLs are well-formed `http(s)` links. |
| - `tags` is a non-empty list; `vulnerable_code != secure_code`. |
| - `expected_cwe` / `expected_owasp` equal the catalog values for that `vulnerability_name` |
| (label consistency). |
| - `metadata` is internally consistent (cwe, cvss_vector, cvss_score). |
| - **Syntax checks**: Python (`compile`), JavaScript (`node --check`), TypeScript |
| (`ts.transpileModule`), Go (`go build` with common stdlib imports), YAML (`yaml.safe_load`), |
| Bash (`bash -n`); other languages use delimiter-balance heuristics and are reported as |
| "unchecked" rather than assumed valid. |
| |
| v1.0.0 result: **PASS — 406 records, 0 errors.** |
| |
| ## 5. Difficulty Levels |
| |
| - **Beginner** — single obvious sink, direct taint flow. |
| - **Intermediate** — framework-specific idiom, slightly indirect flow. |
| - **Advanced** — multiple steps / missing cross-cutting control (authz, crypto). |
| - **Expert** — subtle, context-dependent weakness. |
| - **Real-world enterprise** — multi-component, requires foothold/user interaction; CVSS nudged |
| to reflect PR/UI preconditions. |
| |
| ## 6. Scoring Rubric |
| |
| Weighted, max 100 (see `evaluation/rubrics/rubric_v1.json` and the per-record |
| `evaluation_rubric`): detection 15, CWE 10, OWASP 10, severity 10, exploit 10, fix 20, code |
| quality 10, explanation 10, false-positive avoidance 5. Passing threshold recommended at 70. |
| |
| ## 7. Reproducing |
| |
| ```bash |
| python scripts/build.py && python scripts/validate.py && python scripts/statistics.py |
| ``` |
| |
| ## 8. Versioning |
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| Semantic Versioning. v1.0.0 is the initial public release. See `CHANGELOG.md`. |
| |
