NULLDect: A Dynamic Adaptive Learning Framework for Robust NULL Pointer Dereference Detection

Tasmin Karim, Md. Shazzad Hossain Shaon, Md. Fahim Sultan, Alfredo Cuzzocrea, Alfredo Cuzzocrea, Mst Shapna Akter

2025

Abstract

The identification of null pointer dereference vulnerabilities has implications for software security and reliability, as well as satisfying market needs for user data protection. This study introduces NULLDect, an adaptive learning-based approach that addresses this issue using the CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference) dataset. Such detection becomes essential for averting software failures and unforeseen events that could compromise system stability and security. The proposed approach combines the uses of Long-Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, attention mechanisms, and adaptive learning with callback techniques to produce a phenomenal accuracy rate of 0.806 by extracting features utilizing the CodeT5 paradigm. Furthermore, the work incorporates and evaluates advanced computational models, including CodeT5, BERT, UniXcoder, and NLP-based GloVe embeddings, to discover the most successful strategy for null pointer detection across many evaluation metrics. This adaptability improves model accuracy, robustness, and longevity. NULLDect’s synergistic combination of approaches defines it as a comprehensive and effective solution for detecting and mitigating NULL pointer dereference problems.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Karim T., Shaon M., Sultan M., Cuzzocrea A. and Akter M. (2025). NULLDect: A Dynamic Adaptive Learning Framework for Robust NULL Pointer Dereference Detection. In Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT; ISBN 978-989-758-760-3, SciTePress, pages 571-576. DOI: 10.5220/0013494400003979

in Bibtex Style

@conference{secrypt25,
author={Tasmin Karim and Md. Shaon and Md. Sultan and Alfredo Cuzzocrea and Mst Akter},
title={NULLDect: A Dynamic Adaptive Learning Framework for Robust NULL Pointer Dereference Detection},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT},
year={2025},
pages={571-576},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013494400003979},
isbn={978-989-758-760-3},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT
TI - NULLDect: A Dynamic Adaptive Learning Framework for Robust NULL Pointer Dereference Detection
SN - 978-989-758-760-3
AU - Karim T.
AU - Shaon M.
AU - Sultan M.
AU - Cuzzocrea A.
AU - Akter M.
PY - 2025
SP - 571
EP - 576
DO - 10.5220/0013494400003979
PB - SciTePress