Technical Usability Assessment of Security Analysis Tools for Ethereum Based Smart Contracts

Over the past few years, Ethereum has surfaced as a widely adopted standard Blockchain platform that is increasingly being utilized to develop Decentralized Applications (DApps). By introducing Smart Contracts to software developers and programmers, Ethereum has triggered the development of countless Blockchain solutions. Among its main applications, many involve the exchange of valuable financial assets. Simply put, we cannot afford to base our Blockchain solutions or applications on potentially vulnerable smart contracts. This is where the Security Analysis Tools come into picture, for the timely detection of vulnerabilities in the Smart Contracts. Since this is a recent phenomenon, it offers a lot of research opportunities for us to contribute towards improving the existing state of security analysis tools and resolving their shortcomings. Although most of these tools have been evaluated in terms of effectiveness, installation and reliability; the literature largely lacks the technical usability perspective i.e. execution and evaluation. Therefore, based on a selection criteria, we committed our time to 4 such tools for an extensive usability assessment. We designed our usability study in a manner that combined the advantages of multiple evaluation methods. The results were useful not only in terms of comparative analysis, but also as a validation of the need of identified usability improvements.