Context: An assurance case is a structured hierarchy of claims aiming at demonstrating that a given mission-critical system supports specific requirements (e.g., safety, security, privacy). The presence of assurance weakeners (i.e., assurance deficits, logical fallacies) in assurance cases reflects insufficient evidence, knowledge, or gaps in reasoning. These weakeners can undermine confidence in assurance arguments, potentially hindering the verification of mission-critical system capabilities. Objectives: As a stepping stone for future research on assurance weakeners, we aim to initiate the first comprehensive systematic mapping study on this subject. Methods: We followed the well-established PRISMA 2020 and SEGRESS guidelines to conduct our systematic mapping study. We searched for primary studies in five digital libraries and focused on the 2012-2023 publication year range. Our selection criteria focused on studies addressing assurance weakeners at the modeling level, resulting in the inclusion of 39 primary studies in our systematic review. Results: Our systematic mapping study reports a taxonomy (map) that provides a uniform categorization of assurance weakeners and approaches proposed to manage them at the modeling level. Conclusion: Our study findings suggest that the SACM (Structured Assurance Case Metamodel) -- a standard specified by the OMG (Object Management Group) -- may be the best specification to capture structured arguments and reason about their potential assurance weakeners.

翻译：背景：保证案例是一种结构化声明体系，旨在证明特定关键任务系统满足特定需求（如安全性、安保性、隐私性）。保证案例中存在的保证弱化因素（即保证缺陷、逻辑谬误）反映了证据不足、知识欠缺或推理漏洞。这些弱化因素可能削弱对保证论点的可信度，进而阻碍对关键任务系统能力的验证。目标：作为保证弱化因素未来研究的基石，我们旨在开展首个关于该主题的系统性映射研究。方法：遵循成熟的PRISMA 2020和SEGRESS指南开展系统性映射研究。在五个数字图书馆中检索2012-2023年间的原始研究。筛选标准聚焦于建模层面处理保证弱化因素的研究，最终纳入39篇原始研究进行系统性综述。结果：本系统性映射研究报告了一个分类体系（映射图），提供了对保证弱化因素及建模层面管理方法的统一分类。结论：研究结果表明，OMG（对象管理组织）制定的SACM（结构化保证案例元模型）标准可能是捕捉结构化论点并推理其潜在保证弱化因素的最佳规范。