gcovr

Problem

Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) are structured addresses that point to locations and assets on the internet. URLs allow software developers to build complex applications that exchange data with servers that can be hosted in multiple geographical regions. URLs can commonly be found embedded in documentation, configuration files, source code and compiled binaries. One or more embedded URLs were discovered to link to raw files hosted on GitHub. Attackers often abuse popular web services to host malicious payloads. Since code-sharing services URLs are typically allowed by security solutions, using them for payload delivery increases the odds that the malicious code will reach the user. While the presence of code-sharing service locations does not imply malicious intent, all of their uses in a software package should be documented and approved. An increasing number of software supply chain attacks in the open source space leverages the GitHub service to deliver malicious payloads.

Problem

Software license is a legal instrument that governs the use and distribution of software source code and its binary representation. Software publishers have the freedom to choose any commonly used or purposefully written license to publish their work under. While some licenses are liberal and allow almost any kind of distribution, with or without code modification, other licenses are more restrictive and impose rules for their inclusion in other software projects. Some software licenses place restrictions on software distribution of the code they apply to. These restrictions may extend to the services built upon the code licensed under such restrictive licenses. Some restrictive licenses explicitly state that the licensee may not provide the software to third parties as a hosted or managed service, where the service provides users with access to any substantial set of the features or functionality of the licensed software. When building commercial applications, this is typically undesirable. Therefore, the inclusion of any code that may impose limits on software distribution is commonly avoided or even prohibited by the organization policy.