Displaying items by tag: supply chain attack

Hey, remember that supply chain attack on NPM that happened recently? Which one? Yeah, that is sort of the problem with recent supply chain attacks. In particular the ones that are targeting the development pipeline. This is because they are starting to happen so often that they all blur together, yet NPM and other critical components of the development supply chain are still targets for attackers to either get their malicious packages onto development systems, or in the final compiled binary that is then sent out to the general public. To call this problematic is to describe a nuclear bomb as a big firecracker. Ok, soapbox on the importance of SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) hygiene and security put away for now.

It has been a few days since we talked about NPM and node.js. The popular repository has been taking a bit of a beating in recent months as attackers, hacktivists, and others seek to compromise their packages as part of a general supply chain attack. Supply chain attacks are in vouge right now and are part of the reason you might be seeing the acronym SBOM (Software Build of Materials) so much. Sure, SBOM is not a new term, but the push for it and the rise of an entire vertical in the cybersecurity industry is new and should be a bit of an indicator that there is a problem.

PyPI (the Python Package Index) has stopped allowing the creation of new accounts and the upload of new packages. This move has been put in place to deal with a massive increase in identified malicious users and packages. This decision comes as other repositories like NPM and even Microsoft VSCode have identified new malware posing as well-known projects. Supply chain attacks and typo-squatting are not really a new thing and increases in attacks on repositories often happen on a fairly regular basis. However, the increase across three popular repos can been seen as a larger threat when put in context of the general IT market.

A new flaw has been identified in the Node.js package manager, NPM. The flaw is being described as a logical flaw, but in reading over the data it seems more like a permissions flaw. The good news is that as of April 26, the flaw has been addressed by NPM, the bad is that it was in play until then. According to the researchers that discovered it, the flaw related to the way you can attach other accounts to an uploaded package.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have seen a massive increase in what can only be called cyber warfare. This battle is not just being fought at the state level though. Even APT groups have gotten involved as they take sides in the conflict. One step down from that (and only a very small step) we see the hacktivists jumping into the fray on both sides. Now, we see a new and unexpected form of protest from the open source community.

The SolarWinds supply chain attack was and still is one of the most complex and ingenious attacks that has come to light. How it was discovered is also an interesting topic for another conversation. The attack group in question is still being speculated on although one most people tend to gravitate towards is the Russian APT group COZY BEAR (APT29). The actual attack and compromise of the software repository at SolarWinds is the stuff of legend. Once that was completed it allowed the attackers access to a wide swath of business verticals along with government agencies from a single trusted source. They could, almost on a whim, compromise anyone that leveraged the SolarWinds product. Of course, supply chain attacks are nothing new and are not going anywhere. They are complicated to set up and maintain, but once in place they can yield amazing results.