List of software quality issues with the number of affected components.
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Count
Category
Detected presence of severe vulnerabilities with active exploitation.
Causes risk: actively exploited vulnerabilities
1
vulnerabilities
Problem
Software composition analysis has identified a component with one or more known severe vulnerabilities. Available threat intelligence telemetry has confirmed that the reported high or critical severity vulnerabilities are actively being exploited by malicious actors.Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community
71 packages
found in
Top 100
568 packages
found in
Top 1k
3198 packages
found in
Top 10k
16595 packages
in community
Next steps
We strongly advise updating the component to the latest version.
If the update can't resolve the issue, create a plan to isolate or replace the affected component.
Detected Windows executable files with imported functions susceptible to pointer hijacking.
Causes risk: execution hijacking concerns
2
hardening
Problem
Sensitive executable memory regions should be kept as read-only to protect the integrity of trusted execution code flow paths. Imported function addresses are pointers to the symbols that implement the application-required functionality. If those pointers are changed by malicious code, execution paths can be redirected to unintended locations. Most modern programming language toolchains protect those memory regions appropriately. These issues are commonly reported for outdated linkers and non-compliant executable packing solutions.Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community
20 packages
found in
Top 100
156 packages
found in
Top 1k
474 packages
found in
Top 10k
1793 packages
in community
Next steps
Review the programming language linker options, and consider a build toolchain update.
Detected Windows executable files with TLS callbacks susceptible to pointer hijacking.
Causes risk: execution hijacking concerns
2
hardening
Problem
Sensitive executable memory regions should be kept as read-only to protect the integrity of trusted execution code flow paths. Thread local storage (TLS) callbacks are pointers to code initialization and resource release functions. If those pointers are changed by malicious code, execution paths can be redirected to unintended locations. Most modern programming language toolchains protect those memory regions appropriately. These issues are commonly reported for outdated linkers and non-compliant executable packing solutions.Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community
13 packages
found in
Top 100
101 packages
found in
Top 1k
347 packages
found in
Top 10k
1272 packages
in community
Next steps
Review the programming language linker options, and consider a build toolchain update.
Detected presence of high severity vulnerabilities.
Causes risk: high severity vulnerabilities
1
vulnerabilities
Problem
Software composition analysis has identified a component with one or more known vulnerabilities. Based on the CVSS scoring, these vulnerabilities have been marked as high severity.Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community
72 packages
found in
Top 100
583 packages
found in
Top 1k
3344 packages
found in
Top 10k
17282 packages
in community
Next steps
Perform impact analysis for the reported CVEs.
Update the component to the latest version.
If the update can't resolve the issue, create a plan to isolate or replace the affected component.
Problem
Operating systems execute application code in multiple privilege access levels. Separation of privileges is designed to protect the stability and integrity of the operating system by shielding it from issues that the user run applications may cause. However, some users may need to interact with higher privilege parts of the operating system to accomplish specific tasks. For this purpose, operating systems provide facilities that users may leverage to temporarily elevate their running privileges. Users with higher privileges can run any application with the same privilege level as their own. Attackers often try to trick privileged users into running malicious code, enabling them to infect the operating system. While the presence of code that elevates user privileges 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 can elevate user privileges. One example of acceptable use for such functions is allowing the users to install software packages and updates.Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community
29 packages
found in
Top 100
169 packages
found in
Top 1k
380 packages
found in
Top 10k
1338 packages
in community
Next steps
Investigate reported detections as indicators of software tampering.
Consult Mitre ATT&CK documentation: T1548 - Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism.
Consider rewriting the flagged code without using the marked behaviors.
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.Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community
78 packages
found in
Top 100
618 packages
found in
Top 1k
4203 packages
found in
Top 10k
27868 packages
in community
Next steps
Investigate reported detections.
If the software should not include these network references, investigate your build and release environment for software supply chain compromise.
You should delay the software release until the investigation is completed, or until the issue is risk accepted.
Consider an alternative delivery mechanism for software packages.
Detected Windows executable files that were compiled without following the recommended SDL process.
Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected
1
hardening
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.Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community
38 packages
found in
Top 100
250 packages
found in
Top 1k
719 packages
found in
Top 10k
3448 packages
in community
Next steps
You should keep the debug table to prove that the SDL process has been followed.
To enable these checks, refer to your programming language toolchain documentation.
In Microsoft VisualStudio, you can enable this feature by setting the compiler option /SDL to ON.
Detected Linux executable files compiled without any kind of buffer overrun protection while using banned string functions.
Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected
2
hardening
Problem
Buffer overrun protection on Linux is achieved in two ways. The most common solution is to use the stack canary (also called cookie). The stack canary is a special value written onto the stack that allows the operating system to detect and terminate the program if a stack overrun occurs. In most cases, compilers will apply the stack canary conservatively in order to avoid a negative performance impact. Therefore, stack canaries are often used together with another stack overrun mitigation - fortified functions. Fortified functions are usually wrappers around standard glibc functions (such as memcpy) which perform boundary checks either at compile time or run time to determine if a memory violation has occurred. The compiler needs additional context to generate such calls (for example, array size that needs to be known at compile time). Because of this, the compiler will virtually never substitute all viable functions with their fortified counterparts in complex programs. However, when combined with the stack canary, fortified functions provide a good measure of buffer overrun protection.Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community
22 packages
found in
Top 100
128 packages
found in
Top 1k
260 packages
found in
Top 10k
928 packages
in community
Next steps
Presence of unfortified string functions may indicate use of unsafe programming practices, and you should avoid it if possible.
In GCC, enable fortified functions with -fstack-protector and -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 flag, while using at least -O1 optimization level.
Detected Linux executable files compiled without any kind of buffer overrun protection while using banned memory functions.
Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected
2
hardening
Problem
Buffer overrun protection on Linux is achieved in two ways. The most common solution is to use the stack canary (also called cookie). The stack canary is a special value written onto the stack that allows the operating system to detect and terminate the program if a stack overrun occurs. In most cases, compilers will apply the stack canary conservatively in order to avoid a negative performance impact. Therefore, stack canaries are often used together with another stack overrun mitigation - fortified functions. Fortified functions are usually wrappers around standard glibc functions (such as memcpy) which perform boundary checks either at compile time or run time to determine if a memory violation has occurred. The compiler needs additional context to generate such calls (for example, array size that needs to be known at compile time). Because of this, the compiler will virtually never substitute all viable functions with their fortified counterparts in complex programs. However, when combined with the stack canary, fortified functions provide a good measure of buffer overrun protection.Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community
29 packages
found in
Top 100
170 packages
found in
Top 1k
436 packages
found in
Top 10k
1644 packages
in community
Next steps
Presence of unfortified memory functions may indicate use of unsafe programming practices, and you should avoid it if possible.
In GCC, enable fortified functions with -fstack-protector and -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 flag, while using at least -O1 optimization level.
Detected Linux executable files compiled without any kind of buffer overrun protection while using banned input functions.
Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected
2
hardening
Problem
Buffer overrun protection on Linux is achieved in two ways. The most common solution is to use the stack canary (also called cookie). The stack canary is a special value written onto the stack that allows the operating system to detect and terminate the program if a stack overrun occurs. In most cases, compilers will apply the stack canary conservatively in order to avoid a negative performance impact. Therefore, stack canaries are often used together with another stack overrun mitigation - fortified functions. Fortified functions are usually wrappers around standard glibc functions (such as memcpy) which perform boundary checks either at compile time or run time to determine if a memory violation has occurred. The compiler needs additional context to generate such calls (for example, array size that needs to be known at compile time). Because of this, the compiler will virtually never substitute all viable functions with their fortified counterparts in complex programs. However, when combined with the stack canary, fortified functions provide a good measure of buffer overrun protection.Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community
25 packages
found in
Top 100
142 packages
found in
Top 1k
254 packages
found in
Top 10k
855 packages
in community
Next steps
Presence of some input functions may indicate use of unsafe programming practices, and you should avoid it if possible.
In GCC, enable fortified functions with -fstack-protector and -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 flag, while using at least -O1 optimization level.
10