Lib.Harmony

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.

Problem

Presence of code relocations indicates that the code segment might temporarily, at one point, become both writable and executable. That violates security policies adopted by most modern Linux distributions. During the brief period in which the code segment is both writable and executable, the attacker may be able to overwrite the code with a malicious program.

Problem

On Linux, external symbols are resolved via the procedure linkage table (PLT) and the global offset table (GOT). The global offset table is split into two tables - one for external data, and one for external functions. Without any protection, both are writable at runtime and thus leave the executable vulnerable to data overwrite attacks and pointer hijacking. Data overwrite attacks can be mitigated by using partial read-only relocations, while pointer hijacking can be mitigated with full read-only relocations. Both approaches have some drawbacks. Partial read-only relocations don't provide full protection, because the external function GOT remains writable. Full read-only relocations require that all external function symbols are resolved at load-time instead of during execution. This may increase loading time for large programs.

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.

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.