Supply Chains in Azure SDK/Xcode, GitHub Sessions, & GCP VRP – ASW #144

In theory, tracking down error-prone functions like sprintf() is no more difficult than using grep. In practice, fixing such code takes time and attention, which might explain why flaws can persist for close to 15 years.

A public postmortem on problematic threads. It's an insight into handling a vuln that could serve as an example exercise in root cause analysis and decision making.

Information and techniques for targeting and exploiting cloud environments. Highlighted in the recent [tl;dr sec] newsletter at https://tldrsec.com/blog/tldr-sec-075/

When considering supply chain security, we must remember to be aware and build trust throughout each link that influences how software is built. Signing packages and checking signatures helps ensure their provenance, but we also need to have confidence in the security properties associated with how such packages are built. It's a concept that goes back decades, most notably the paper by Ken Thompson on "Reflections on trusting trust" from 1984 (https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358198.358210).

Google looks back to the top 6 GCP vulns disclosed under its Vulnerability Reward Program. The rewards range from $130K to $1K, but they're all well-written insights into the mindset and techniques for finding flaws. Even if you're not using GCP, the write-ups are a great way to help instill more threat modeling in your appsec and DevOps teams.

Think of this as a variant on supply chain security, where one component that may be completely unknown to you and completely out of your control fails to enforce a security control, which in turn weakens the security properties you expected from SMS. Notably, this doesn't exploit familiar SS7 protocol weaknesses, but highlights yet another way to use social engineering to exploit trust between companies. Even if attacks like this don't scale well, the impact to those affected remains consequential and, as a targeted attack, it could be the first step towards an unexpected compromise.

Another method of playing with the supply chain is found through presenting potentially malicious software that a bot would pick up and list as legitimate