C/C++

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.

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.

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.

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. Some open source projects have a history of security lapses that culminated with a publication of one or more malicious component versions. To ensure that repeated supply chain incidents do not occur, the open source project should be closely monitored for up to two years. All software package versions that are published within two years of the malware incident will convey a warning about the history of security incidents tied to the open source project.