Spectra Assure
Community
warningRisk: Hardening
Scanned: 13 days ago

IKVM.MSBuild.Tools.runtime.win-x64

latest
License: unknown
Published: 13 days ago



SAFE Assessment

Compliance

Licenses
No license compliance issues
Secrets
4 debugging symbols found

Security

Vulnerabilities
No known vulnerabilities detected
Hardening
4 outdated toolchains detected

Threats

Tampering
No evidence of software tampering
Malware
No evidence of malware inclusion
List of software quality issues with the number of affected components.
Policies
Info
Category

Problem

Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) is a group of enhanced compile-time checks that report common coding mistakes as errors. These checks prevent the use of hard-to-secure string manipulation functions. They enforce static memory access checks, and allow only the use of range-verified string parsing functions. While these checks do not prevent every memory corruption issue by themselves, they do help reduce the likelihood.

Prevalence in NuGet community

0 packages
found in
Top 100
1 packages
found in
Top 1k
23 packages
found in
Top 10k
4.71k packages
in community

Next steps

It's highly recommended to enable these checks for all software components used at security boundaries, or those that process user controlled inputs.
To enable these checks, refer to your programming language toolchain documentation.
In Microsoft VisualStudio, you can enable this feature by setting the compiler option /SDL to ON.

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. One or more embedded URLs were discovered to link to raw files hosted on GitHub. Attackers often abuse popular web services to host malicious payloads. Since code-sharing services URLs are typically allowed by security solutions, using them for payload delivery increases the odds that the malicious code will reach the user. While the presence of code-sharing service locations does not imply malicious intent, all of their uses in a software package should be documented and approved. An increasing number of software supply chain attacks in the open source space leverages the GitHub service to deliver malicious payloads.

Prevalence in NuGet community

0 packages
found in
Top 100
22 packages
found in
Top 1k
142 packages
found in
Top 10k
59.57k 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 an alternative delivery mechanism for software packages.

Problem

Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) is a group of enhanced compile-time checks that report common coding mistakes as errors, preventing them from reaching production. These checks minimize the number of security issues by enforcing strict memory access checks. They also prevent the use of hard-to-secure string and memory manipulation functions. To prove the binary has been compiled with these checks enabled, the compiler emits a special debug object. Removing the debug table eliminates this proof. Therefore, this check only applies to binaries that still have their debug tables.

Prevalence in NuGet community

0 packages
found in
Top 100
3 packages
found in
Top 1k
47 packages
found in
Top 10k
13.12k packages
in community

Next steps

You should keep the debug table to prove that the SDL process has been followed.
To enable these checks, refer to your programming language toolchain documentation.
In Microsoft VisualStudio, you can enable this feature by setting the compiler option /SDL to ON.

Problem

Program database (PDB) files are typically only used during software development. They contain private debug symbols that make it significantly easier to reverse engineer a closed-source application. In some cases, having a program database file is equivalent to having access to the source code. Presence of program databases could indicate that one or more software components have been built using a debug profile, instead of the release.

Prevalence in NuGet community

0 packages
found in
Top 100
14 packages
found in
Top 1k
69 packages
found in
Top 10k
19.61k packages
in community

Next steps

Private debug database files should not be embedded within executables, and you should remove them from the software package before releasing it.
The integrity verification of the embedded database files should not be done with insecure hashing algorithms. SHA1 and MD5 hashes should be deprecated throughout the application, and a more secure SHA256 algorithm should be used instead.

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. Software developers publish components they have authored to public repositories. While a new software project is a welcome addition to the open source community. it is not always prudent to indiscriminately use the latest components when building a commercial application. Irrespective of the software quality, the danger of using components that are rarely used to build applications lies in the fact that the software component may contain novel, currently undetected malicious code. Therefore, it is prudent to review software component behaviors and even try out software component in a sandbox, an environment meant for testing untrusted code.

Prevalence in NuGet community

No prevalence information at this time

Next steps

Check the software component behaviors for anomalies.
Consider exploratory software component testing within a sandbox environment.
Consider replacing the software component with a more widely used alternative.
Avoid using this software package until it is vetted as safe.

Problem

Digital signatures are applied to applications, packages and documents as a cryptographically secured authenticity record. Signatures verify the origin and the integrity of the object they apply to. The integrity validation relies on the cryptographic strength of the encryption and the hash verification algorithm. If either of the two is considered weak by current standards, there is a chance the signed object could be maliciously modified, without triggering the integrity failure check.

Prevalence in NuGet community

0 packages
found in
Top 100
38 packages
found in
Top 1k
315 packages
found in
Top 10k
733.24k packages
in community

Next steps

Create signatures with strong ECC key-length of at least 224 bits, or RSA key-length of at least 2048 bits, and use SHA256 as the hashing algorithm. While encryption key-length upgrade does require you to obtain a new certificate, the hashing algorithm can freely be selected during signing.
With Microsoft SignTool, you can specify the hashing algorithm using the /fd SHA256 parameter.

Problem

Debug databases are typically only used during software development. On Windows, they are usually files embedded into the executable (PDB), while on Linux, they're contained inside special executable sections. The databases contain private debug symbols that make it significantly easier to reverse-engineer a closed-source application. In some cases, having a debug database is equivalent to having access to the source code. Presence of debug databases could indicate that one or more software components have been built using a debug profile, instead of the release. Private debug databases can be embedded into software components by programming language tools.

Prevalence in NuGet community

0 packages
found in
Top 100
15 packages
found in
Top 1k
76 packages
found in
Top 10k
21.58k packages
in community

Next steps

To remediate this issue and remove private debugging information, refer to your programming language toolchain documentation.

Problem

Control Flow Guard (CFG/CFI) protects the code flow integrity by ensuring that dynamic calls are made only to vetted functions. This mitigation is detected as enabled, but its effectiveness is impacted by unexpected function alignment. For optimal protection, guarded functions must be aligned to the 16-byte boundary. Any misalignment leaves a small window for the malicious code to take advantage of an improperly secured code flow path.

Prevalence in NuGet community

0 packages
found in
Top 100
1 packages
found in
Top 1k
21 packages
found in
Top 10k
1.68k packages
in community

Next steps

There are currently no programming language toolchain options to force proper function alignment. If this warning is issued for a file, it is likely that a future build, with some code changes, will make the compiler order the application code differently and eliminate the CFG coverage gaps.

Problem

Digital signatures are applied to applications, packages and documents as a cryptographically secured authenticity record. Signatures are made using digital certificates, which can either be purchased from certificate authorities or be self-issued. When a certificate is purchased from a certificate authority, the subject that requests it goes through an identity validation process. Depending on the certificate type, those checks can be basic or extended. Confirming the subject identity is a multi-step process, and the requesting subject can be mapped to its legal entity name only through extended validation of submitted documents. Extended identity validation typically costs more, and it takes longer for a certificate to be issued when this process is correctly followed.

Prevalence in NuGet community

0 packages
found in
Top 100
27 packages
found in
Top 1k
292 packages
found in
Top 10k
732.23k packages
in community

Next steps

Consider the benefits of acquiring extended validation certificates. Operating systems tend to be more trusting of software packages signed in this way. Certain security warnings and prompts might also be automatically suppressed. This reduces the number of support tickets for organizations that opt to use extended validation certificates.

Problem

Operating systems allow multiple user accounts to coexist on a single computer system. Each registered user has identity information associated with their account. At the very least, user accounts consist of a user name and an optional password. In some cases, user account data may also include personally identifiable information. Extended personal information may include user's given and last name, their email and mailing address, personal photo and their telephone number. Financially motivated attackers may seek to collect personal information for purposes of selling the private data to a third-party. Malicious code that typically exhibits these behavior traits is commonly referred to as an information stealer. While the presence of code that accesses identity information does not necessarily imply malicious intent, all of its uses in a software package should be documented and approved. Accessing identity information is a very common behavior for software packages. One example of acceptable use for such functions is verifying that the active user has purchased a software license that allows them to run the application.

Prevalence in NuGet community

0 packages
found in
Top 100
1 packages
found in
Top 1k
27 packages
found in
Top 10k
4.14k packages
in community

Next steps

Investigate reported detections as indicators of software tampering.
Consult Mitre ATT&CK documentation: T1033 - System Owner/User Discovery.