List of software quality issues with the number of affected components.
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Detected Windows executable files that were compiled without following the recommended SDL process.
Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected
3
hardening
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
13120 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.
Detected Linux executable files compiled without any kind of buffer overrun protection while using banned memory functions.
Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected
2
hardening
Problem
Buffer overrun protection on Linux is achieved in two ways. The most common solution is to use the stack canary (also called cookie). The stack canary is a special value written onto the stack that allows the operating system to detect and terminate the program if a stack overrun occurs. In most cases, compilers will apply the stack canary conservatively in order to avoid a negative performance impact. Therefore, stack canaries are often used together with another stack overrun mitigation - fortified functions. Fortified functions are usually wrappers around standard glibc functions (such as memcpy) which perform boundary checks either at compile time or run time to determine if a memory violation has occurred. The compiler needs additional context to generate such calls (for example, array size that needs to be known at compile time). Because of this, the compiler will virtually never substitute all viable functions with their fortified counterparts in complex programs. However, when combined with the stack canary, fortified functions provide a good measure of buffer overrun protection.Prevalence in NuGet community
0 packages
found in
Top 100
1 packages
found in
Top 1k
19 packages
found in
Top 10k
2641 packages
in community
Next steps
Presence of unfortified memory functions may indicate use of unsafe programming practices, and you should avoid it if possible.
In GCC, enable fortified functions with -fstack-protector and -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 flag, while using at least -O1 optimization level.
Detected Linux executable files compiled without any kind of buffer overrun protection while using banned input functions.
Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected
1
hardening
Problem
Buffer overrun protection on Linux is achieved in two ways. The most common solution is to use the stack canary (also called cookie). The stack canary is a special value written onto the stack that allows the operating system to detect and terminate the program if a stack overrun occurs. In most cases, compilers will apply the stack canary conservatively in order to avoid a negative performance impact. Therefore, stack canaries are often used together with another stack overrun mitigation - fortified functions. Fortified functions are usually wrappers around standard glibc functions (such as memcpy) which perform boundary checks either at compile time or run time to determine if a memory violation has occurred. The compiler needs additional context to generate such calls (for example, array size that needs to be known at compile time). Because of this, the compiler will virtually never substitute all viable functions with their fortified counterparts in complex programs. However, when combined with the stack canary, fortified functions provide a good measure of buffer overrun protection.Prevalence in NuGet community
0 packages
found in
Top 100
1 packages
found in
Top 1k
19 packages
found in
Top 10k
2224 packages
in community
Next steps
Presence of some input functions may indicate use of unsafe programming practices, and you should avoid it if possible.
In GCC, enable fortified functions with -fstack-protector and -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 flag, while using at least -O1 optimization level.
Detected Linux executable files that use a deprecated method to store the security cookie, making the buffer overrun vulnerability mitigation protection less effective.
Causes risk: reduced effectiveness mitigations
4
hardening
Problem
Stack canary is a special value written onto the stack that allows the operating system to detect and terminate the program if a stack overrun occurs. Older compilers might generate stack cookies in a way that makes it possible to determine their value, allowing the attacker to render the mitigation ineffective.Prevalence in NuGet community
0 packages
found in
Top 100
0 packages
found in
Top 1k
13 packages
found in
Top 10k
2591 packages
in community
Next steps
In GCC, you can enable the stack canary with -fstack-protector-strong or -fstack-protector-all flag, but it may also be enabled by default in more recent versions of the compiler.
Consider upgrading your compiler.
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. Software developers build up the reputation of their open source projects by developing in public. Modern source code repositories have many social features that allow software developers to handle bug reports, have discussions with their users, and convey reaching significant project milestones. It is uncommon to find open source projects that omit linking their component to a publicly accessible source code repository.Prevalence in NuGet community
No prevalence information at this timeNext 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.
Detected Linux executable files that were compiled without the recommended dynamic symbol hijacking protections.
Causes risk: execution hijacking concerns
8
hardening
Problem
On Linux, external symbols are resolved via the procedure linkage table (PLT) and the global offset table (GOT). Without any protection, both are writable at runtime and thus leave the executable vulnerable to pointer hijacking - an attack where the function address is overwritten with an address of a malicious function. Pointer hijacking can be mitigated by using full read-only relocations, which instruct the compiler to unify global offset tables into a single read-only table. This requires that all external function symbols are resolved at load-time instead of during execution, and may increase loading time for large programs.Prevalence in NuGet community
0 packages
found in
Top 100
1 packages
found in
Top 1k
24 packages
found in
Top 10k
4427 packages
in community
Next steps
In most cases, it's recommended to use full read-only relocations (in GCC: -Wl,-z,relro,-z,now).
If the executable load-time is an issue, you should use partial read-only relocations.
Detected digital signatures that rely on a weak digest algorithm for integrity validation.
1
signatures
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
733240 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
21579 packages
in community
Next steps
To remediate this issue and remove private debugging information, refer to your programming language toolchain documentation.
Detected presence of hardcoded source code filenames or paths.
Causes risk: debugging symbols found
12
secrets
Problem
Common compilers often embed source code information into executables for debugging purposes, usually by mapping symbols to source filenames or paths. While this is typically desirable in open-source software and standard tools, that information can be used to determine security weaknesses, code repository layout, trade secrets and similar sensitive information. Such symbols make it easier to reverse-engineer a closed source application.Prevalence in NuGet community
0 packages
found in
Top 100
1 packages
found in
Top 1k
23 packages
found in
Top 10k
4619 packages
in community
Next steps
Strip out such information in the linking phase by using compiler options like the -s flag in GCC, or in the post-build phase by using the strip tool.
Detected Linux executable files without any fortified functions.
Causes risk: low priority mitigations absent
1
hardening
Problem
Fortified functions are usually wrappers around standard glibc functions (such as memcpy) which perform boundary checks either at compile time or run time to determine if a memory violation has occurred. The compiler needs additional context to generate such calls (for example, array size that needs to be known at compile time). Because of this, the compiler will virtually never substitute all viable functions with their fortified counterparts in complex programs. However, lack of any fortified functions may indicate that this compiler feature was not used at all.Prevalence in NuGet community
0 packages
found in
Top 100
1 packages
found in
Top 1k
22 packages
found in
Top 10k
4342 packages
in community
Next steps
In GCC, you can enable fortified functions with -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 flag, while using at least -O1 optimization level.
10