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Problem

Software developers use programming and design knowledge to build reusable software components. Software components are the basic building blocks for modern applications. Software consumed by an enterprise consists of hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of open source components. Open source communities depend on the work of thousands of software developers that volunteer their time to maintain software components. While the majority of open source contributors are altruistic and trustworthy, some software developers have a history of making harmful changes to the projects they maintain. Changes that are considered harmful include destructive and disruptive actions, and other developer behaviors that might cause them to be considered untrustworthy in their community. Code written by these software developers should be put under higher degree of scrutiny, and continuously reviewed for unexpected changes.

Problem

Software components contain executable code that performs actions implemented during its development. These actions are called behaviors. In the analysis report, behaviors are presented as human-readable descriptions that best match the underlying code intent. While most behaviors are benign, some are commonly abused by malicious software with the intent to cause harm. When a software package shares behavior traits with malicious software, it may become flagged by security solutions. Any detection from security solutions can cause friction for the end-users during software deployment. While the behavior is likely intended by the developer, there is a small chance this detection is true positive, and an early indication of a software supply chain attack.