LLMs in Software Security: A Survey of Vulnerability Detection Techniques and Insights

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Sheng, Ze, Chen, Zhicheng, Gu, Shuning, Huang, Heqing, Gu, Guofei, Huang, Jeff
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Sheng, Ze
Chen, Zhicheng
Gu, Shuning
Huang, Heqing
Gu, Guofei
Huang, Jeff
author_facet Sheng, Ze
Chen, Zhicheng
Gu, Shuning
Huang, Heqing
Gu, Guofei
Huang, Jeff
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) are emerging as transformative tools for software vulnerability detection, addressing critical challenges in the security domain. Traditional methods, such as static and dynamic analysis, often falter due to inefficiencies, high false positive rates, and the growing complexity of modern software systems. By leveraging their ability to analyze code structures, identify patterns, and generate repair suggestions, LLMs, exemplified by models like GPT, BERT, and CodeBERT, present a novel and scalable approach to mitigating vulnerabilities. This paper provides a detailed survey of LLMs in vulnerability detection. It examines key aspects, including model architectures, application methods, target languages, fine-tuning strategies, datasets, and evaluation metrics. We also analyze the scope of current research problems, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches. Further, we address challenges such as cross-language vulnerability detection, multimodal data integration, and repository-level analysis. Based on these findings, we propose solutions for issues like dataset scalability, model interpretability, and applications in low-resource scenarios. Our contributions are threefold: (1) a systematic review of how LLMs are applied in vulnerability detection; (2) an analysis of shared patterns and differences across studies, with a unified framework for understanding the field; and (3) a summary of key challenges and future research directions. This work provides valuable insights for advancing LLM-based vulnerability detection. We also maintain and regularly update latest selected paper on https://github.com/OwenSanzas/LLM-For-Vulnerability-Detection
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_07049
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle LLMs in Software Security: A Survey of Vulnerability Detection Techniques and Insights
Sheng, Ze
Chen, Zhicheng
Gu, Shuning
Huang, Heqing
Gu, Guofei
Huang, Jeff
Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
Large Language Models (LLMs) are emerging as transformative tools for software vulnerability detection, addressing critical challenges in the security domain. Traditional methods, such as static and dynamic analysis, often falter due to inefficiencies, high false positive rates, and the growing complexity of modern software systems. By leveraging their ability to analyze code structures, identify patterns, and generate repair suggestions, LLMs, exemplified by models like GPT, BERT, and CodeBERT, present a novel and scalable approach to mitigating vulnerabilities. This paper provides a detailed survey of LLMs in vulnerability detection. It examines key aspects, including model architectures, application methods, target languages, fine-tuning strategies, datasets, and evaluation metrics. We also analyze the scope of current research problems, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches. Further, we address challenges such as cross-language vulnerability detection, multimodal data integration, and repository-level analysis. Based on these findings, we propose solutions for issues like dataset scalability, model interpretability, and applications in low-resource scenarios. Our contributions are threefold: (1) a systematic review of how LLMs are applied in vulnerability detection; (2) an analysis of shared patterns and differences across studies, with a unified framework for understanding the field; and (3) a summary of key challenges and future research directions. This work provides valuable insights for advancing LLM-based vulnerability detection. We also maintain and regularly update latest selected paper on https://github.com/OwenSanzas/LLM-For-Vulnerability-Detection
title LLMs in Software Security: A Survey of Vulnerability Detection Techniques and Insights
topic Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.07049