Humans are required to solve a malicious insider. But most supply chain vulns of these shitty software dependency managers were resolved decades ago by freely available cryptography
We just recently switched from npm to pnpm, due to all the supply chain attacks. I did the PR for it, even.
Our release schedule is like a year though so we don’t really have to worry much about releasing compromised dependencies. But still, better to be on the safer side.
I know this is a joke but im old enough we used to install the os and had it on the network and eventually update it but then it got to the point were like being connected to the internet for like a minute and the machines were compromised. Thats when we got off our duffs and started making custom installs that had updates and configurations and software pre installed before we even connected it to the net.
And how would apt help in this particular case? A supply chain attack can happen with any particular package manager. In this case, the compromised package was detected and mitigated within 93 minutes, affecting a total of ~330 users. Which is a lot better than how a lot of distros handled the xz breach last year.
All reasonably secure package managers (and https) operate on a chain of trust. There is little that can be done if that chain of trust is broken.
Based on this the cause was a malicious VSCode extension that stole credentials that were later used to trigger a deployment CI/CD pipeline. If there’s anything to learn from this, it’s probably to not use VSCode.
If your assumption is that X509 is trash, does that mean you hold the same amount of distrust to TLS?
How do you propose the scaling of key management? Do you have a reasonable alternative to users blindly trusting every single key they come across?
Back to my original question: what prevents a VSCode extension from stealing a private signing key (as opposed to an API key) and causing the same issues described here?
Unfortunately I have to use node for home project (Jellyfin tizen)
I was wondering: would it be possible to run node in a sandbox to lower the scope of the attack? (i.e. not compromise my home computer)
Or is maybe a full VM a better solution?
Don’t. Use. Npm.
That applies to pip and crate and all the other shitty lang package managers that totally fail at security
What should be used instead?
Easy, just vendor all your dependencies! Can’t have a supply chain attack if you are the supply chain.
A package manager that uses cryptographic signatures. Apt had this since 2005 iirc. Use apt.
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Packages are reviewed by package maintainers.
Humans are required to solve a malicious insider. But most supply chain vulns of these shitty software dependency managers were resolved decades ago by freely available cryptography
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Apt is great, but it does not work with every language. As an example, you cannot use apt with maven (java) AFAIK.
Oh boy. Maven is like the only language dependency manager that does signing tho!
You don’t need to use apt for java. Just use maven :)
Haha! Yeah, I don’t even know where to start if I wanted to use apt for this. I’ll stick with Maven for Java.
what about cargo?
Same problem.
so many workplaces I have been at used npm.
Yep. And so many workplaces have had security vulnerabilities caused by dumb decisions that could have been easily avoided
We just recently switched from npm to pnpm, due to all the supply chain attacks. I did the PR for it, even.
Our release schedule is like a year though so we don’t really have to worry much about releasing compromised dependencies. But still, better to be on the safer side.
Honestly just fine use computers at all, completely eliminate the remote attack vector. And only drink rain water since city water can be compromised.
Or, recognize this is a normal part of using software and have more than 1 thing between you and a breach
The rules of cybersecurity:
Under no circumstances should you own a computer.
If you absolutely must own a computer, under no circumstances should you connect it to the internet.
If you absolutely must connect it to the internet, it’s too late and they already have you
I know this is a joke but im old enough we used to install the os and had it on the network and eventually update it but then it got to the point were like being connected to the internet for like a minute and the machines were compromised. Thats when we got off our duffs and started making custom installs that had updates and configurations and software pre installed before we even connected it to the net.
Dude, rain water is full of pollutants too. 😂
Apt works great
And how would apt help in this particular case? A supply chain attack can happen with any particular package manager. In this case, the compromised package was detected and mitigated within 93 minutes, affecting a total of ~330 users. Which is a lot better than how a lot of distros handled the xz breach last year.
All reasonably secure package managers (and https) operate on a chain of trust. There is little that can be done if that chain of trust is broken.
Based on this the cause was a malicious VSCode extension that stole credentials that were later used to trigger a deployment CI/CD pipeline. If there’s anything to learn from this, it’s probably to not use VSCode.
With cryptography. X.509 is trash. They should pin the public key.
TLS is fine with certificate pinning m
That still leaves two out of three questions unanswered. Most importantly the last one, which was addressed towards the original complaint.
What about using pip just to download basic common libraries for offline use?
Don’t do it.
Because they could be changed or have something sneak in the library?
Yeah, without signature checking anything that you download could change to anything else.
That’s a remote code execution vuln.
Unfortunately I have to use node for home project (Jellyfin tizen)
I was wondering: would it be possible to run node in a sandbox to lower the scope of the attack? (i.e. not compromise my home computer) Or is maybe a full VM a better solution?
Technically you can use node without npm.
Wouldn’t verion pinning solve this problem?
Jellyfin is available in apt
I need to build it, jellyfin-tizen is a separate project for Samsung TVs
I think you need to throw out the Samsung TV to be secure
Full VM and network isolation. and dont put anything important there (nor a reused password for auth)