pyspnego

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 contain executable code that performs actions implemented during its development. These actions are called behaviors. In the analysis report, behaviors are presented as human-readable descriptions that best match the underlying code intent. While most behaviors are benign, some are commonly abused by malicious software with the intent to cause harm. When a software package shares behavior traits with malicious software, it may become flagged by security solutions. Any detection from security solutions can cause friction for the end-users during software deployment. While the behavior is likely intended by the developer, there is a small chance this detection is true positive, and an early indication of a software supply chain attack.

Problem

Attackers commonly hide their malicious payloads in layers of packing and code obfuscation. Base-encoding is a common data transformation technique used to convert binary payloads into text. Detected software behaviors indicate that the code has the ability to decode and execute Base-encoded data. While presence of dynamic code execution does not imply malicious intent, all of its uses in a software package should be documented and approved. When a software package has behavior traits similar to malicious software, it may become flagged by security solutions. One example of acceptable use for dynamic Base-encoded data execution is transfer of software components over the network.

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

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. URL paths provide additional information to a web service when making a request. They are an optional, but an important part of the URL, as they may define specific content or actions based on the data being passed. Some parameters they pass might be considered sensitive information. Since path components are not encrypted this might cause sensitive information to leak. This issue is raised for URL paths than might contain information that attackers can easily intercept. Examples of sensitive information fields include passwords and other similar parameters.