Malicious packages are often spread by the open source NPM and PyPI package repositories, with few other repositories affected. Specifically – there was no public evidence of severe malicious activity in the NuGet repository other than spam packages used for spreading phishing links. As with other repositories, the JFrog Security Research team regularly monitors the NuGet repository for malicious packages, including manual analysis of suspicious code.

The recent OpenSSH double-free vulnerability – CVE-2023-25136, created a lot of interest and confusion regarding OpenSSH’s custom security mechanisms – Sandbox and Privilege Separation. Until now, both of these security mechanisms were somewhat unnoticed and only partially documented. The double-free vulnerability raised interest for those who were affected and those controlling servers that use OpenSSH.

Announcing the general availability of JFrog Xray’s advanced security features in self-hosted subscriptions, organizations have the flexibility to manage and secure their software development pipelines in-house and in the cloud.

Our previous research on CVE exploitability in the top DockerHub images discovered that 78% of the reported CVEs were actually not exploitable. This time, the JFrog Security Research team used JFrog Xray’s Contextual Analysis feature, automatically analyzing the applicability of reported CVEs, to scan OWASP WebGoat – a deliberately insecure application. The results identified that out of 60 CVEs reported with a Critical CVSS score, only 10 are actually applicable.

At JFrog, we’re serious about software supply chain security. As a CVE Numbering Authority, our JFrog Security Research team regularly discovers and discloses new malicious packages and vulnerabilities posing a threat to development organizations. We know that in order to deliver trusted software on demand, you must have a secure software supply chain — making security a priority in everything we do.

OpenSSH’s newly released version 9.2p1 contains a fix for a double-free vulnerability. Given the severe potential impact of the vulnerability on OpenSSH servers (DoS/RCE) and its high popularity in the industry, this security fix prompted the JFrog Security Research team to investigate the vulnerability. This blog post provides details on the vulnerability, who is affected, and a proof-of-concept to trigger it causing a Denial of Service (DoS).

Containerised deployment is widely becoming a standard in every industry, ensuring these containers are protected at every level with a high level of accuracy is one of the most important tasks. Some industry vendors rely solely on the manifest files to provide them with a list of components, others have to manually convert the container image to a TAR archive before scanning, and even then they may only work on the application layer instead of evaluating the entire filesystem.

Wow! We made it to the last post in our Malicious Packages series. While parting is such sweet sorrow, we hope blogs one, two, and three provide insights into the havoc malicious packages cause throughout your DevOps and DevSecOps pipelines. In the prior posts: Now let’s get to know attackers’ other, more discreet interests when creating a malicious package: hiding malicious code, and finally showing how malicious packages can be detected and prevented.