List of software quality issues with the number of affected components.
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Problem
Software components sometimes need to interact with higher privilege parts of the operating system, often requiring administrative access to accomplish a task. System certificate stores are databases that define the chain of trust for a machine. These databases control the list of websites the machine can securely connect to, and the list of applications that the operating system implicitly trusts. For that reason, attackers often abuse system certificate stores to ensure their malicious code executes without being detected by security solutions. While the presence of code that tampers with system certificate stores 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 certificate stores. One example of acceptable use for such functions is adding publisher certificates to the system trust store during software installation.
Prevalence in PowerShell Gallery community
2 packages
found in
Top 100
40 packages
found in
Top 1k
181 packages
found in
Top 10k
310 packages
in community
Next steps
Investigate reported detections as indicators of software tampering.
Consider rewriting the flagged code without using the marked behaviors.
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.
Prevalence in PowerShell Gallery community
1 packages
found in
Top 100
4 packages
found in
Top 1k
5 packages
found in
Top 10k
20 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.
Problem
Private keys and certificates are considered sensitive information that should not be included in released software packages. However, developers frequently release sensitive information alongside their applications to facilitate automated software testing. Testing keys and certificates often proliferate through the software supply chain. When such information gets shared publicly, it is catalogued by file reputation databases. Any private key and certificate files seen by a file reputation database prior to configured time threshold can be automatically suppressed. Commonly shared sensitive information is not considered to be secret.
Prevalence in PowerShell Gallery community
5 packages
found in
Top 100
123 packages
found in
Top 1k
371 packages
found in
Top 10k
631 packages
in community
Next steps
Review the commonly shared sensitive information for evidence of inadvertently exposed secrets.
If the keys were published unintentionally and the software has been made public, you should revoke the keys and file a security incident.