potel

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.

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.

Problem

Control Flow Guard (CFG/CFI) protects the code flow integrity by ensuring that indirect calls are made only to vetted functions. This mitigation is detected as enabled, but its effectiveness is impacted by the use of outdated precompiled code. It was determined that the application had been linked against static libraries produced by multiple toolchain versions. Because some of them predate the general availability of the control flow guard vulnerability mitigation, it is likely that protection coverage gaps exist.

Problem

Control Flow Guard (CFG/CFI) protects the code flow integrity by ensuring that dynamic calls are made only to vetted functions. Trusted execution paths rely on the ability of the operating system to build a list of valid function targets. Certain functions can intentionally be disallowed to prevent malicious code from deactivating vulnerability mitigation features. A list of such invalid function targets can include publicly exported symbols. Applications that enhance control flow integrity through export suppression rely on libraries to mark their publicly visible symbols as suppressed. This is done for all symbols that are considered to be sensitive functions, and to which access should be restricted. It is considered dangerous to mix applications that perform export suppression with libraries that do not.

Problem

Control Flow Guard (CFG/CFI) protects the code flow integrity by ensuring that indirect calls are made only to vetted functions. This mitigation protects dynamically resolved function targets by instrumenting the code responsible for transferring execution control. Higher-level programming languages implement structured exception handling by managing their own code flow execution paths. As such, they are subject to code flow hijacking during runtime. Language-specific exception handling mitigation enforces execution integrity by instrumenting calls to manage execution context switching. Any deviation from the known and trusted code flow paths will cause the application to terminate. This makes malicious code less likely to execute.