BlueTuxedo

Problem

Software components sometimes need to interact with higher privilege parts of the operating system, often requiring administrative access to accomplish a task. System security settings are the first line of defense against the most common attack vectors. For that reason, attackers often aim to tamper with system security settings. Disabling User Access Controls (UAC) and other security settings enables malicious code to execute without being blocked. While the presence of code that tampers with system security settings does not necessarily imply malicious intent, all of its uses in a software package should be documented and approved. Only select applications should consider using functions that interact with system security settings. One example of acceptable use for such functions is allowing specialized applications to install as services that monitor the operating system events.

Problem

Software components sometimes need to interact with higher privilege parts of the operating system, often requiring administrative access to accomplish a task. Operating systems include a complete network stack with many services that allow the machine to connect to the internet. Some of these services are used to secure network access. For that reason, attackers often aim to tamper with system network settings. Disabling firewalls and other network security features enable the malicious code to execute without being blocked. While the presence of code that tampers with system network settings does not necessarily imply malicious intent, all of its uses in a software package should be documented and approved. Only select applications should consider using functions that interact with system network settings. One example of acceptable use for such functions is allowing specialized applications to use non-standard network ports by updating the firewall allowlist.

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.