Systematic Review: Analysis of Coding Vulnerabilities across Languages

Abstract

The boom of coding languages in the 1950s revolutionized how our digital world was construed and accessed. The languages invented then, including Fortran, are still in use today due to their versatility and ability to underpin a large majority of the older portions of our digital world and applications. Fortran, or Formula Translation, was a programming language implemented by IBM that shortened the apparatus of coding and the efficacy of the language syntax. Fortran marked the beginning of a new era of efficient programming by reducing the number of statements needed to operate a machine several-fold. Since then, dozens more languages have come into regular practice and have been increasingly diversified over the years. Some modern languages include Python, Java, JavaScript, C, C++, and PHP. These languages significantly improved efficiency and also have a broad range of uses. Python is mainly used for website/software development, data analysis, task automation, image processing, and graphic design applications. On the other hand, Java is primarily used as a client-side programming language. Expanding the coding languages allowed for increasing accessibility but also opened up applications to pertinent security issues. These security issues have varied by prevalence and language. Previous research has narrowed its focus on individual languages, failing to evaluate the security. This research paper investigates the severity and frequency of coding vulnerabilities comparatively across different languages and contextualizes their uses in a systematic literature review.