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Oh no, not again a meditation on NPM supply chain attacks

tane.dev

11–20 of 235 posts

Re: Oh no, not again a meditation on NPM supply chain attacks

#13
post #6

I think if somebody wants to see library distribution channels tightened up they need to be very specific about what they would like to see changed and why it would be better, since it would appear that the status quo is serving what people actually want - being able to create and upload packages and update them when you want. > But right now there are still no signed dependencies and nothing stopping people using AI…

> But right now there are still no signed dependencies

Considering these attacks are stealing API tokens by running code on developer's machines; I don't see how signing helps, attackers will just steal the private keys and sign their malware with those.

Re: Oh no, not again a meditation on NPM supply chain attacks

#14

I think the cooldown approach would make this type of attack have practically no impact anymore, if nobody ever updates to a newly published package version until, say, 2-3 days have gone by, surely there will be enough time for owner of the package to notice he got pwnd.

I've never heard of this. It sounds like a solid default to me. If you _really_ need an update you can override it, but it should remain the default and not allow opting out.

Re: Oh no, not again a meditation on NPM supply chain attacks

#15
post #2

> The tools we use to build software are not secure by default, and almost all of the time, the companies that provide them are not held to account for the security of their products. The companies? More like the unpaid open source community volunteers who the Fortune 500 leech off contributing nothing in return except demands for free support, fixes and more features.

[flagged]

Re: Oh no, not again a meditation on NPM supply chain attacks

#16
funny how npm is the exact same model as maven, gopkg, cpan, pip, mix, cargo, and a million others.

but only npm started with a desire to monetize it (well, npm and docker hub) and in its desire for control didn't implement (or allowed the community to implement) basic higiene.

Re: Oh no, not again a meditation on NPM supply chain attacks

#17
post #13
post #6

I think if somebody wants to see library distribution channels tightened up they need to be very specific about what they would like to see changed and why it would be better, since it would appear that the status quo is serving what people actually want - being able to create and upload packages and update them when you want. > But right now there are still no signed dependencies and nothing stopping people using AI…

> But right now there are still no signed dependencies Considering these attacks are stealing API tokens by running code on developer's machines; I don't see how signing helps, attackers will just steal the private keys and sign their malware with those.

Could they detect code running from a new IP address or location and ask for a 2FA code?

Re: Oh no, not again a meditation on NPM supply chain attacks

#19
post #2

> The tools we use to build software are not secure by default, and almost all of the time, the companies that provide them are not held to account for the security of their products. The companies? More like the unpaid open source community volunteers who the Fortune 500 leech off contributing nothing in return except demands for free support, fixes and more features.

I remember joining my company right out of college. In the interview we started talking about open source since I had some open source Android apps. I asked if the company contributed back to the projects it used. The answer was no, but that they were planning to. Over a decade later... they finally created a policy to allow commits to open source projects. It's been used maybe 3 times in it's first year or so. Nobody has the time and the management culture doesnt want to waste budget on it.
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