Abstract In this paper, we investigate the strategies adopted by Solidity developers to fix security vulnerabilities in smart contracts. Vulnerabilities are categorized using the DASP TOP 10 taxonomy, and fixing strategies are extracted from 364 commits collected from open-source Solidity projects on GitHub. Each commit was selected through a two-phase process: an initial filter using natural language processing techniques, followed by manual validation. We assessed whether these fixes adhere to established academic guidelines. Our analysis shows that 60.55% of the commits aligned with at least one literature-based recommendation, particularly for well-documented vulnerability types such as Reentrancy and Arithmetic. However, adherence dropped significantly for categories like Denial of Service, Time Manipulation, and Bad Randomness, highlighting gaps between academic best practices and real-world developer behavior. From the remaining 143 non-aligned commits, we identified 27 novel fixing strategies not previously discussed in the literature. To evaluate their quality, we conducted a structured questionnaire involving 9 experts from both academia and industry. Their feedback indicated high perceived effectiveness of the new fixes, especially for vulnerabilities like Reentrancy and Unchecked Return Values. Generalizability received more varied responses, suggesting context-specific applicability. Finally, we performed a post-fix evolution analysis on over 6700 subsequent commits to assess the long-term stability of the fixes. Most patches remained unchanged, confirming their persistence in production code. Our findings offer practical insights into how vulnerabilities are fixed in smart contracts today, reveal promising emerging patterns, and help bridge the gap between academic guidelines and developer practices.

Context: Crypto-agility, a name that stems from agile methodologies for software development, means the ability to modify quickly and securely cryptographic algorithms in the event of a compromise. The advent of quantum computing poses existential threats to current cryptography, having the power to breach current cryptography systems. Objective: We investigated whether and to what extent agile practices for software development are suited to support crypto-agility, or not. In particular, we discuss their usefulness in the context of substituting current algorithms with quantum-resistant ones. Method: First, we analyzed the literature to define a subset of 15 agile practices potentially relevant to cryptographic software development. Then, we developed a questionnaire to assess the suitability of agile practices for obtaining crypto-agility. We performed a Web search of relevant documents about crypto-agility and quantum resistance and sent their authors the questionnaire. We also sent the questionnaire to cybersecurity officers of four Italian firms. We analyzed and discussed the responses to 32 valid questionnaires. Results: The respondents’ affiliations are evenly distributed between researchers and developers. Most of them are active, or somehow active, in quantum-resistant cryptography and use agile methods. Most of the agile practices are deemed to be quite useful, or very useful to get crypto-agility, the most effective being Continuous Integration and Coding Standards; the least appreciated is Self-organizing Team. Conclusion: According to researchers and developers working in the field, the safe transition of cryptographic algorithms to quantum-resistant ones can benefit from the adoption of many agile practices. Further software engineering research is needed to integrate agile practices in more formal cryptographic software development processes.

Blockchain-based Information Ecosystems (BBIEs) are a type of information ecosystem in which blockchain technology is used to provide a trust mechanism among parties and to manage shared business logic, breaking the traditional scheme of Information Ecosystems dominated by a leading company and leveraging the decentralization of data management, information flow, and business logic. In this paper, we propose architecture and technical aspects concerning creating a BBIE, underlining the advantages supplied and the logic decomposition among the business and storage components. The requirements are derived from the current needs of the collaborative business and the data collected by surveying practitioners. To get these needs we followed the Grounded Theory research approach. We validate our architectural schema against a case study on managing a wine supply chain–involving different companies and supervision authorities. The proposed solution integrates blockchain-based applications with the existing information system as a module of the ecosystem, leveraging on the low costs, scalability, and high-level security because of the restricted access to the network. We must go a long way in deepening and refining the possibilities offered by technology in supporting innovative multi-organizational business models. BBIEs can contribute substantially to paving the way in such a direction.

Blockchain and the programs running on it, called smart contracts, are increasingly applied in all fields where trust and strong certifications are required. Our work focuses on industrial applications of blockchains and not on cryptocurrencies or tokens. We use frameworks to compare public and permissioned blockchains specifically suited for industrial applications. We also propose a complete solution based on Ethereum to implement a decentralized application, putting together in an original way, components and patterns already used and proven. This solution is characterized by a set of validator nodes running the blockchain using Proof-of-Authority or similar efficient consensus algorithms, by the use of an explorer enabling users to check the blockchain state, and the source code of the smart contracts running on it. From time to time, the hash digest of the last mined block is written into a public blockchain to guarantee immutability. The right to send transactions is granted by validator nodes to users by endowing them with the Ethers mined locally. Overall, the proposed approach has the same transparency and immutability as a public blockchain, largely reducing its drawbacks.

Blockchain software development is becoming more and more important for any modern software developer and IT startup. Nonetheless, blockchain software production still lacks a disciplined, organized and mature development process, as demonstrated by the many and (in)famous failures and frauds occurred in recent years. In this paper we present ABCDE, a complete method addressing blockchain software development. The method considers the software integration among the blockchain components—smart contracts, libraries, data structures—and the out-of-chain components, such as web or mobile applications, which all together constitute a complete DApp system. We advocate for ABCDE the use of agile practices, because these are suited to develop systems whose requirements are not completely understood since the beginning, or tend to change, as it is the case of most blockchain-based applications. ABCDE is based on Scrum, and is therefore iterative and incremental. From Scrum, we kept the requirement gathering with user stories, the iterative-incremental approach, the key roles, and the meetings. The main difference with Scrum is the separation of development activities in two flows—one for smart contracts and the other for out-of-chain software interacting with the blockchain—each performed iteratively, with integration activities every 2–3 iterations. ABCDE makes explicit the activities that must be performed to design, develop, test and integrate smart contracts and out-of-chain software, and documents the smart contracts using formal diagrams to help development, security assessment, and maintenance. A diagram derived from UML class diagram helps to effectively model the data structure of smart contracts, whereas the exchange of messages between the entities of the system is modeled using a modified UML sequence diagram. The proposed method has also specific activities for security assessment and gas optimization, through systematic use of patterns and checklists. ABCDE focuses on Ethereum blockchain and its Solidity language, but preserves generality and with proper modifications might be applied to any blockchain software project. ABCDE method is described in detail, and an example is given to show how to concretely implement the various development steps.