{"id":13299,"date":"2021-12-09T20:21:59","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T01:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/?page_id=13299"},"modified":"2026-06-02T14:59:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T18:59:23","slug":"tr-09-05-evaluating-security-products-with-clinical-trials","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/research\/scs-technical-reports\/technical-reports-2009\/tr-09-05-evaluating-security-products-with-clinical-trials\/","title":{"rendered":"TR-09-05: Evaluating Security Products with Clinical Trials"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"w-screen px-6 cu-section cu-section--white ml-offset-center md:px-8 lg:px-14\">\n    <div class=\"space-y-6 cu-max-w-child-5xl  md:space-y-10 cu-prose-first-last\">\n\n            <div class=\"cu-textmedia flex flex-col lg:flex-row mx-auto gap-6 md:gap-10 my-6 md:my-12 first:mt-0 max-w-5xl\">\n        <div class=\"justify-start cu-textmedia-content cu-prose-first-last\" style=\"flex: 0 0 100%;\">\n            <header class=\"font-light prose-xl cu-pageheader md:prose-2xl cu-component-updated cu-prose-first-last\">\n                                    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] pb-5 after:w-10 text-cu-black-700 not-prose\">\n                        TR-09-05: Evaluating Security Products with Clinical Trials\n                    <\/h1>\n                \n                                \n                            <\/header>\n\n                    <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n<p>Carleton University<br>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/research\/scs-technical-reports\/technical-reports-2009\/\">Technical Report<\/a> TR-09-05<br>\nJune 11, 2009<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"evaluating-security-products-with-clinical-trials\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Evaluating Security Products with Clinical Trials<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"tr_t3\">\n<div class=\"tr_t3\">\n<div class=\"tr_t3\">\n<div class=\"tr_t3\">\n<div class=\"tr_t3\">\n<div class=\"tr_t3\">\n<div class=\"tr_t3\">\n<div class=\"tr_t3\">\n<p class=\"tr_t3\">Anil Somayaji, Yiru Li, Hajime Inoue, Jos\u00e9 M. Fernandez, Richard Ford<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>Abstract<\/h3>\n<p>One of the largest challenges faced by purchasers of security products is evaluating their relative merits. While purchasers can get reliable information on characteristics such as runtime overhead, user interface, and support quality, the actual level of protection provided by different security products is mostly unranked &#8211; or, worse yet, ranked using criteria that do generally reflect their performance in practice. Even though researchers have been working on improving testing methodologies, given the complex interactions of users, uses, evolving threats, and different deployment environments, there are fundamental limitations on the ability of lab-based measurements to determine real world performance. To address these issues, we propose an alternative evaluation method, computer security clinical trials. In this method, security products are deployed in randomly selected subsets of targeted populations and are monitored to determine their performance in practice. We believe that clinical trials can provide solid evidence of the efficacy of security products, much as they have in the field of medicine.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/260\/TR-09-05.pdf\">TR-09-05.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carleton University Technical Report TR-09-05 June 11, 2009 Evaluating Security Products with Clinical Trials Anil Somayaji, Yiru Li, Hajime Inoue, Jos\u00e9 M. Fernandez, Richard Ford Abstract One of the largest challenges faced by purchasers of security products is evaluating their relative merits. While purchasers can get reliable information on characteristics such as runtime overhead, user [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":12434,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cu_dining_location_slug":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_page_type":[],"class_list":["post-13299","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13300,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13299\/revisions\/13300"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_page_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/scs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_page_type?post=13299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}