A comparative study of neural network architectures for software vulnerability forecasting

Abstract

Abstract The frequency of cyberattacks has been rapidly increasing in recent times, which is a significant concern. These attacks exploit vulnerabilities present in the software components that constitute the targeted system. Consequently, the number of vulnerabilities within these software components serves as an indicator of the system’s level of security and trustworthiness. This paper compares the accuracy, trainability and stability to configuration parameters of several neural network architectures, namely Long Short-Term Memory, Multilayer Perceptron and Convolutional Neural Network. These architectures are utilized for forecasting the number of software vulnerabilities within a specified timeframe for a specific software product. By evaluating these neural network models, our aim is to provide insights into their performance and effectiveness in vulnerability forecasting.