Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

February 2023

Finding YAML Injection with Snyk Code

I conducted some research to try and identify YAML Injection issues in open-source projects using Snyk Code. Though the vulnerability itself is not a new one, the potential impact of YAML Injection is high, which made it a good candidate for research. This research led to the discovery of several issues in open-source projects written in Python, PHP and Ruby. This article focuses on the issue found in geokit-rails version 2.3.2, a plugin for Ruby on Rails

The Big Fix. OWASP TOP 10 Snyk Learn Path (Cryptography & Outdated Components)

OWASP stands for Open Web Application Security Project. This non-profit foundation works to improve software security. They have published a top 10 list that acts as an awareness document for developers. It represents a broad consensus about the most critical security risks. Our goal at Snyk Learn is to educate developers and one way we do that is by covering the OWASP top 10 list.

The security concerns of a JavaScript sandbox with the Node.js VM module

Were you tasked with building a product that requires the execution of dynamic JavaScript originating from end users? You might think building it on-top of Node.js VM module is a viable way to create a JavaScript sandbox. In this article, we’ll learn why that’s far from being a recommended approach and the security implications of doing so. Every now and then there’s a project that challenges the rudimentary and routine backend development. APIs? Message queues?

When software isn't a "supply"

I was inspired to write this after reading a post from Thomas Depierre on Mastodon. The post touched on something that’s been troubling me recently. When it comes to software security, we spend a lot of time talking about the software supply chain and related concepts, such as the software bill of materials (SBOM). This metaphor comes from an industrial lexicon. People who are used to talking about economies and how manufacturing works are familiar with the idea of supply chain.

The dangers of setattr: Avoiding Mass Assignment vulnerabilities in Python

Mass assignment, also known as autobinding or object injection, is a category of vulnerabilities that occur when user input is bound to variables or objects within a program. Mass assignment vulnerabilities are often the result of an attacker adding unexpected fields to an object to manipulate the logic of a program.

Snyk Workflows - Ignores & PR Checks

Snyk integrates with your IDEs, repos, workflows, and automation pipelines to add security expertise to your toolkit. The “menu” of options available to you is extensive, so we created this three-part series to get you started and running. Do you want your dev teams and AppSec teams to be aligned? The second session of the series digs deeper into using ignore capabilities. You’ll also learn about PR checks. This is a great way to get ahead of permissions.

Stranger Danger: Your Java Attack Surface Just Got Bigger

Building Java applications today means that we take a step further from writing code. We use open-source dependencies, create a Dockerfile to deploy containers to the cloud, and orchestrate this infrastructure with Kubernetes. Welcome, you're a cloud native application developer! As developers, our responsibility broadened, and more software means more software security concerns for us to address.

CSPRNG: Random algorithms need security too!

If I throw a coin high up in the air, I know the outcome — it will either be heads or tails. However, I can’t predict which it will be. I will certainly be able to guess with a 50% chance, but I can’t be 100% certain. If I were to roll a die, my certainty becomes less (1 in 6). However, I still know what the output could be. Computers are great at many things, especially predictability. They are deterministic and creating a truly random number is impossible.

Stranger Danger: Your JavaScript Attack Surface Just Got Bigger

Building JavaScript applications today means that we take a step further from writing code. We use open-source dependencies, create a Dockerfile to deploy containers to the cloud, and orchestrate this infrastructure with Kubernetes. Welcome - you're a cloud native application developer! As developers, our responsibility has broadened, and more software means more software security concerns for us to address.

Snyk and Atlassian deepen partnership with Snyk security in Jira Software

Our long-standing partnership with Atlassian is built on our mutual commitment to providing a great developer experience. It started with our native integration within the Bitbucket Cloud UI, and today we’re incredibly excited to announce yet another new door opening in our partnership. The new Snyk integration for Jira Software will bring security and collaboration to Atlassian users at every stage of the development lifecycle.

How YellowAI Uses AWS & Snyk: Securing Cloud & Apps Using a Developer-First Approach

Citu Singh of CNBC-TV18 asks technology business leaders to share their philosophy on developing applications quickly and safely. Apoorva Gaurav, VP of Engineering from YellowAI, talks about how his team uses Snyk, while Shaun McLagan, VP of Snyk APJ, shares the benefits of a developer-first approach to security.

Evolving the Snyk CLI through an extensible approach

Every day, thousands of developers use the Snyk CLI as part of their development workflow, to identify and resolve security issues in their code as early as possible. What if these developers and other security professionals could harness the power of this dev-first approach and also utilize entirely new security analyses, filters, and workflows via an extensible approach?

Automate Cloud compliance with Snyk Cloud

Audits are challenging. Especially when it comes to assessing abstract compliance standards against multiple cloud environments, unique cloud infrastructure setups, and many possible (mis)configurations. To help our customers automate compliance assessments, Snyk Cloud now supports 10+ compliance standards— including CIS Benchmarks for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, SOC 2, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and more.

Dev-First Prevention Strategies

Security and engineering teams often fail to find a balance between meeting the necessary security objectives for their organization and ensuring maximum velocity. While security teams view the process of blocking new critical severity vulnerabilities as a basic security best practice, engineering teams often push back out of fear that it will create too much friction for their developers. This dynamic is often based on prior experience with legacy security systems that focus almost solely on the needs of security and fail to support developers in this process.

4 application security bad habits to ditch in 2023 (and best practices to adopt instead)

Regardless of how last year went, a few things probably come to mind that you’d like to leave in 2022. Maybe it’s a bad habit you’d like to drop or a mindset you’d like to change. But speaking of ditching bad habits, some poor cloud application security practices shouldn’t carry over to 2023 either!

Stranger Danger: Your JavaScript Attack Surface Just Got Bigger

Building JavaScript applications today means that we take a step further from writing code. We use open-source dependencies, create a Dockerfile to deploy containers to the cloud, and orchestrate this infrastructure with Kubernetes. Welcome - you're a cloud native application developer! As developers, our responsibility has broadened, and more software means more software security concerns for us to address.

Snyk Workflows - Basic Workflows (IDE & CLI)

Snyk integrates with your IDEs, repos, workflows, and automation pipelines to add security expertise to your toolkit. The “menu” of options available to you is extensive, so we created this three-part series to get you started and running. The first session covers basic workflows in the IDE and CLI. You’ll learn to proactively plan how to leverage Snyk in different places and different ways. We will cover basic workflows and how to use them, as well as quick tips.