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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. Bitcoin (BTC) is a digital currency that uses peer-to-peer technology to facilitate instant payments on the web. Bitcoin exchanges allow their customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Financially motivated actors often include references to cryptocurrency exchanges in their code. Ransomware victims are instructed to visit Bitcoin exchanges to acquire the digital currency. Bitcoin is the most common payment method accepted by attackers in exchange for decrypting the user-generated data that is held for ransom. While presence of Bitcoin exchange service references does not imply malicious intent, all of its uses in a software package should be documented and approved. Only select applications should consider keeping track of Bitcoin exchange websites.

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 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.

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. Each of these components can have dozens, or even hundreds, of its own dependencies. When building applications, software developers download and install components from public repositories. For components to work properly, all of their dependencies also need to be installed. Some package repositories, like Node Package Manager (NPM), allow components to declare dependencies that are hosted remotely. Such dependencies are automatically downloaded from a specified location during software component installation. Since remotely hosted dependencies are not immutable, that enables a threat actor to change the dependency contents even after a component was published and vetted by security solutions. It is uncommon to find open source components that use remotely hosted dependencies residing outside the official project source code repository.

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. Copyleft licenses in particular impose substantial restrictions on the licensee. They typically require that any derived works, and even software code that merely interacts with copyleft code, be licensed under the same license. Since copyleft licenses are commonly applied to open source code, their inclusion requires that the entire software package becomes open sourced. For commercial applications, this is typically undesirable. Therefore, the inclusion of copyleft code is commonly avoided or even prohibited by the organization policy.