Systematic mapping of security patterns research
2015
Security patterns (SPs) are reusable solutions to security problems. We study here research papers that use security patterns to build secure systems or analyze the nature of security patterns. The goal of this paper is neither listing nor direct mapping of existing over 200 SPs but finding about how SPs are being investigated within research works to guide future research targeting SPs. Although the number of SPs has recently grown, the current trends and future prospects of SP research (e.g., research content and their modeling methods of SPs) are uncertain due to the diversity in the research results themselves. To elucidate the current trends and future prospects, herein we classify 30 works on SPs using a technique called systematic mapping (SM), which addresses the following three research questions with nine facets for classification: RQ1. Is SP research an active field? RQ2. What are the current trends of SP research? RQ3: What are the future prospects of SP research? Obtained answers are: A1. SP research has been conducted constantly in the past decade, confirming that the field is active. A2. The most common research topic is the SP application, demonstrating that efficient and reliable techniques to apply SPs are necessary to guarantee security. A3. There could be several future prospects aligned with the facets. For example, Access Control is a common concrete SP in current SP research and is likely in actual development; however, it needs to be further examined for other SPs in addition to access control to handle various threats. These answers are expected to improve further SP research and the effectiveness of SPs.