Spectra Assure

failIncident: Malware

Scanned:

vscodepython

Artifact:

latest

removed

malicious

Research

VS Code Python Integration

License: unknown

New!

Published:

Publisher: dfadhel

See on Visual Studio Code

SAFE Assessment

Compliance

Licenses

No license compliance issues

Secrets

No sensitive information found

Security

Vulnerabilities

No known vulnerabilities detected

Hardening

84 misconfigured toolchains detected

Threats

Tampering

1 components prone to hijacking

Malware

3 analyst-vetted malware found

IMPORTANT: All versions of this package have been malicious

Latest malware incident detected:

Version: 1.0.2

INCIDENTS FOR THIS VERSION:

malware

Reported By: ReversingLabs (Researcher)

Learn more about malware detection

removal

Reported By: Community

List of software quality issues with the number of affected components.

Policies

Info

Count

Problem

Threat researchers have manually inspected the software package and determined that it contains one or more malicious files. The detection was made by a hash-based file reputation lookup. This malware detection method is considered highly accurate, and can typically identify the malware family by name.

Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community

1 packages

found in

Top 100

15 packages

found in

Top 1k

52 packages

found in

Top 10k

312 packages

in community

Next steps

Investigate the build and release environment for software supply chain compromise.

Avoid using this software package.

SQ14140

Detected Windows executable files compiled without following the SDL best practices while using banned string functions.

Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected

hardening

Problem

Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) is a group of enhanced compile-time checks that report common coding mistakes as errors. These checks prevent the use of hard-to-secure string manipulation functions. They enforce static memory access checks, and allow only the use of range-verified string parsing functions. While these checks do not prevent every memory corruption issue by themselves, they do help reduce the likelihood.

Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community

22 packages

found in

Top 100

104 packages

found in

Top 1k

197 packages

found in

Top 10k

774 packages

in community

Next steps

It's highly recommended to enable these checks for all software components used at security boundaries, or those that process user controlled inputs.

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.

TH17127

Detected presence of files containing URLs that link to raw files on GitHub.

hunting

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.

TH30103

Detected presence of software components that were removed from the public package repository.

Causes risk: components prone to hijacking

hunting

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. Open source projects are the intellectual property of their respective authors. At any time, the authors may choose to completely remove the software component from a public repository. This often occurs when a software project reaches its end-of-life stage, or when the software authors lose interest in maintaining the project. This kind of removal frees up the software package name, its unique software identifier in the public repository, for other developers to use. However, new software project owners might have malicious intent. Threat actors are continuously monitoring popular package names in case their unique identifiers suddenly become available for hijacking. Once the software projects falls under new ownership, the new maintainers may opt to use the project popularity to spread malware to unsuspecting users.

Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community

4 packages

found in

Top 100

52 packages

found in

Top 1k

264 packages

found in

Top 10k

26547 packages

in community

Next steps

Inspect behaviors exhibited by the detected software components.

If the software behaviors differ from expected, investigate the build and release environment for software supply chain compromise.

Revise the use of components that raise these alarms. If you can't deprecate those components, make sure that their versions are pinned.

Avoid using this software package until it is vetted as safe.

TH30105

Detected presence of software components that were recently published to the public package repository.

hunting

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 being the first to try out a new project 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 Visual Studio Code community

0 packages

found in

Top 100

4 packages

found in

Top 1k

44 packages

found in

Top 10k

7143 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.

TH30106

Detected presence of software components that have low popularity or number of downloads.

hunting

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 being the first to try out a new project 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 Visual Studio Code community

12 packages

found in

Top 100

62 packages

found in

Top 1k

231 packages

found in

Top 10k

638 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.

SQ14138

Detected Windows executable files that were compiled without following the recommended SDL process.

Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected

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.

SQ14139

Detected Windows executable files compiled without following the SDL best practices while using banned memory functions.

Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected

hardening

Problem

Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) is a group of enhanced compile-time checks that report common coding mistakes as errors. These checks prevent the use of hard-to-secure memory manipulation functions. They enforce static memory access checks, and allow only the use of range-verified memory access functions. While these checks do not prevent every memory corruption issue by themselves, they do help reduce the likelihood.

Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community

23 packages

found in

Top 100

125 packages

found in

Top 1k

203 packages

found in

Top 10k

813 packages

in community

Next steps

It's highly recommended to enable these checks for all software components used at security boundaries, or those that process user controlled inputs.

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.

TH15103

Detected presence of files with behaviors commonly used by malicious software.

hunting

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.

Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community

31 packages

found in

Top 100

242 packages

found in

Top 1k

1429 packages

found in

Top 10k

6896 packages

in community

Next steps

Investigate reported detections.

If the software intent does not relate to the reported behavior, 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 rewriting the flagged code without using the marked behaviors.

TH30107

Detected presence of software components that are rarely included by other public software packages.

hunting

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 Visual Studio Code community

9 packages

found in

Top 100

40 packages

found in

Top 1k

134 packages

found in

Top 10k

392 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.

Did you know...

... that you can use ReversingLabs’ Spectra Assure platform to perform regular risk assessments of packages you develop in-house?

We recommend continuous software safeness monitoring through CI/CD integrations and pre-release/deployment checks. In addition to basic package information found on this page our platform offers rich reports for developers and DevSecOps that help them remediate all reported issues.

List of software quality issues with the number of affected components.

Policies

Info

Count

Problem

Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community

1 packages

found in

Top 100

15 packages

found in

Top 1k

52 packages

found in

Top 10k

312 packages

in community

Next steps

Investigate the build and release environment for software supply chain compromise.

Avoid using this software package.

SQ14140

Detected Windows executable files compiled without following the SDL best practices while using banned string functions.

Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected

hardening

Problem

Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community

22 packages

found in

Top 100

104 packages

found in

Top 1k

197 packages

found in

Top 10k

774 packages

in community

Next steps

It's highly recommended to enable these checks for all software components used at security boundaries, or those that process user controlled inputs.

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.

TH17127

Detected presence of files containing URLs that link to raw files on GitHub.

hunting

Problem

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.

TH30103

Detected presence of software components that were removed from the public package repository.

Causes risk: components prone to hijacking

hunting

Problem

Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community

4 packages

found in

Top 100

52 packages

found in

Top 1k

264 packages

found in

Top 10k

26547 packages

in community

Next steps

Inspect behaviors exhibited by the detected software components.

If the software behaviors differ from expected, investigate the build and release environment for software supply chain compromise.

Revise the use of components that raise these alarms. If you can't deprecate those components, make sure that their versions are pinned.

Avoid using this software package until it is vetted as safe.

TH30105

Detected presence of software components that were recently published to the public package repository.

hunting

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 being the first to try out a new project 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 Visual Studio Code community

0 packages

found in

Top 100

4 packages

found in

Top 1k

44 packages

found in

Top 10k

7143 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.

TH30106

Detected presence of software components that have low popularity or number of downloads.

hunting

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 being the first to try out a new project 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 Visual Studio Code community

12 packages

found in

Top 100

62 packages

found in

Top 1k

231 packages

found in

Top 10k

638 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.

SQ14138

Detected Windows executable files that were compiled without following the recommended SDL process.

Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected

hardening

Problem

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.

SQ14139

Detected Windows executable files compiled without following the SDL best practices while using banned memory functions.

Causes risk: misconfigured toolchains detected

hardening

Problem

Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community

23 packages

found in

Top 100

125 packages

found in

Top 1k

203 packages

found in

Top 10k

813 packages

in community

Next steps

It's highly recommended to enable these checks for all software components used at security boundaries, or those that process user controlled inputs.

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.

TH15103

Detected presence of files with behaviors commonly used by malicious software.

hunting

Problem

Prevalence in Visual Studio Code community

31 packages

found in

Top 100

242 packages

found in

Top 1k

1429 packages

found in

Top 10k

6896 packages

in community

Next steps

Investigate reported detections.

If the software intent does not relate to the reported behavior, 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 rewriting the flagged code without using the marked behaviors.

TH30107

Detected presence of software components that are rarely included by other public software packages.

hunting

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 Visual Studio Code community

9 packages

found in

Top 100

40 packages

found in

Top 1k

134 packages

found in

Top 10k

392 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.