Automated detection of flaws and incompatibility problems in information flow downgraders

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to:

• identify downgrader code in application code, wherein the downgrader code is a portion of code in the application code that operates on an information flow of the application code to ensure confidentiality of information input to the downgrader code, in the output of the downgrader code;
• generate, based on an input string, an output string that the downgrader code outputs in response to receiving the input string;
• retrieve one or more sets of illegal string patterns, wherein each of the one or more sets of illegal string patterns is associated with a corresponding deployment environment, and wherein the illegal string patterns are string patterns that a downgrader identifies in the information flow for security purposes;
• determine, by the application analysis mechanism, whether the downgrader code is compatible with a target deployment environment based on the one or more sets of illegal string patterns and the output string;
• and
• generate, by the application analysis mechanism, an output indicative of the results of the determining.