Mining Security Vulnerabilities from Linux Distribution Metadata

Security vulnerability research has long been hindered by the difficulty in obtaining structured, detailed data on individual vulnerabilities in sufficient quantities for analysis. We mined vulnerabilities from historical change log data from Linux distribution packages, tapping a yet-unexplored source of security data. Change logs provide a unified view of a application´s evolution, version branching structure, and vulnerability patching history, allowing for the large-scale compilation of data on susceptible (and, in some cases, non-susceptible) versions of the original application for each vulnerability. We then compiled vulnerability datasets for multiple releases of Debian and Ubuntu Linux, analyzing trends in vulnerability patching over time. Patching practices in Debian and Ubuntu were similar, and patch rates stayed constant throughout each distribution´s lifetime.