Developers encounter serious challenges relating to cryptography, primarily due to a lack of fundamental understanding of concepts like OpenSSL, public-key cryptography, and password hashing. Common usability issues with cryptography APIs further exacerbate difficulties, leading to an alarming need for better-designed crypto libraries. A study analyzed 91,954 cryptography-related questions on Stack Overflow and manually examined 383 to reveal these problems. Despite tools for static analysis existing, developers often hesitate to use them due to unfamiliarity and high false positive rates. Online forums remain vital resources for alleviating cryptography-related issues.
We clustered 91,954 cryptography-related questions on Stack Overflow and manually analyzed 383 to comprehend the crypto challenges developers face. Developers showed a lack of knowledge of fundamental concepts.
There exist static analysis tools, but developers are reluctant to employ them due to a lack of familiarity, organizational restrictions, or high rates of false positives.
Online Q&A forums like Stack Overflow are critical information sources for developers to resolve issues they face with cryptography.
The findings indicate an alarming need for dedicated research to improve the design of crypto APIs and enhance developer performance in secure cryptography usage.
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