List of software quality issues with the number of affected components.
category ALL
Policies
Info
Category
Problem
Various network communication protocols allow including plaintext authentication credentials. Information such as user names and passwords could be passed through a non-encrypted channel, and therefore intercepted by malicious actors. Credentials are considered secrets, and should be kept encrypted until they are used. This policy control matches the following URI pattern protocol://username:password@domain within any software package component.
Prevalence in npm community
1 packages
found in
Top 100
3 packages
found in
Top 1k
110 packages
found in
Top 10k
22.4k packages
in community
Next steps
Review the reported matches. If the warning refers to a placeholder credential value, it can be safely ignored.
Problem
Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) are structured addresses that point to locations and assets on the internet. URLs allow software developers to build complex applications that exchange data with servers that can be hosted in multiple geographical regions. URLs can commonly be found embedded in documentation, configuration files, source code and compiled binaries. A port number is associated with a network address of a host, such as an IP address, and the type of network protocol used for communication. Within URLs, the ports are optional. Ports can be specified in a URL immediately following the domain name. Each network protocol, or schema, has a set of standard ports on which the service operates. This issue is raised when a mismatch between a network protocol and its expected port number is detected. While the presence of non-standard ports does not imply malicious intent, all of their uses in a software package should be documented and approved.
Prevalence in npm community
6 packages
found in
Top 100
42 packages
found in
Top 1k
867 packages
found in
Top 10k
519.08k packages
in community
Next steps
Investigate reported detections.
If the software should not include these network references, investigate your build and release environment for software supply chain compromise.
You should delay the software release until the investigation is completed, or until the issue is risk accepted.
Consider changing the port to one that is standard for the networking protocol.
Problem
Unicode is a text encoding standard designed to support the use of text written in all of the major languages and writing systems. While most languages are written from left to right, some are written in alternative directions. To accommodate encoding text written in such languages, the Unicode standard includes a number of special characters that allow the text direction to be specified. However, changing text direction can have adverse effects on how the encoded text is displayed and interpreted. For this reason, bidirectional Unicode control characters are commonly abused by malicious actors as a means of bypassing security solutions and avoiding detection. While presence of special Unicode characters does not imply malicious intent, all of its uses in a software package should be documented and approved. One example of acceptable use for these special characters is in script files that parse, validate, and transform Unicode-encoded text.
Prevalence in npm community
5 packages
found in
Top 100
21 packages
found in
Top 1k
374 packages
found in
Top 10k
113.9k packages
in community
Next steps
Investigate reported detections as indicators of software tampering.