List of software quality issues with the number of affected components.
category ALL
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Info
Category
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 PowerShell Gallery community
2 packages
found in
Top 100
22 packages
found in
Top 1k
836 packages
found in
Top 10k
2.54k packages
in community
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.
Detected digital signatures that rely on a weak digest algorithm for integrity validation.
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 PowerShell Gallery community
87 packages
found in
Top 100
354 packages
found in
Top 1k
1060 packages
found in
Top 10k
1.69k 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.
Detected digital signatures that have not been performed with an extended validation certificate.
signatures
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 PowerShell Gallery community
89 packages
found in
Top 100
261 packages
found in
Top 1k
994 packages
found in
Top 10k
1.58k 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.