OmniPSTemplates

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 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 being the first to try out a new project 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.

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.