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Tag: binaries

  • ReversingLabs Applies AI to Better Secure Application Binaries

    ReversingLabs Applies AI to Better Secure Application Binaries

    ReversingLabs this week launched a binary analysis tool that uses machine learning algorithms to identify risks before and after applications are deployed.

    Erik Thoen, vice president of product management for ReversingLabs, said Spectra Assure makes use of the same core artificial intelligence (AI) technologies the company uses to discover malware within binaries to analyze the entire software package, including first-, second- and third-party components, to identify potential threats.

    Thanks to the use of AI, Spectra Assure is able to scan applications that are gigabytes in size in minutes or hours, depending on their complexity, noted Thoen.

    That approach is critical because attacks launched against applications are more often aimed at binaries that are deployed in production applications rather than the source code used to create them, he added.

    In addition, Spectra Assure can be applied to both open source and proprietary software, said Thoen. In contrast, many legacy scanning tools are designed to only surface potential issues in open source software, he noted.

    Spectra Assure is designed to be used by both producers of software and the organizations that deploy software, said Thoen. Organizations that develop software need to be able to identify any security potential issues that may have arisen during the build process, while organizations that consume software need to be assured that there are no issues that will later compromise their IT environments, said Thoen.

    ReversingLabs is attempting to fill a gap that exists in many software supply chains between when a software build is completed and deployed, said Thoen. While developers may scan source code for vulnerabilities, it’s not uncommon for changes to be made during the build process that inadvertently create vulnerabilities, said Thoen.

    It’s still not clear which teams within organizations are assuming responsibility for the software supply chain. In many cases, DevSecOps teams are securing the software supply chain, but in other instances, cybersecurity teams have been tasked to lock them down. Among organizations that consume software, responsibility for application security might be assumed by either the cybersecurity teams or a procurement office responsible for purchasing software.

    Regardless of how software supply chain security is managed, the number of attacks against them has risen sharply. A recent ReversingLabs report found there has been a 1,300% Increase in malicious packages found in open source software platforms since 2020.

    Ultimately, it’s only a matter of time before more stringent regulations force the software supply chain security issue. A recent executive order issued by the Biden administration requiring federal agencies to secure software supply chains is a harbinger of stricter controls that enterprise IT organizations must implement. DevSecOps teams, in the meantime, have an opportunity to revisit the workflows that were created in an era where developers tended to overly trust the integrity of software components downloaded from open repositories.

    Of course, it may require a catastrophic event to truly galvanize organizations into action, but one way or another, application security is going to improve. The only issue remaining to determine is how expensive a proposition that will be given the potential fines that are likely to be one day levied.

  • JFrog Adds Curation Capability for Open Source Software Components

    JFrog Adds Curation Capability for Open Source Software Components

    JFrog today announced it is adding a curation capability for open source software to its portfolio that will use metadata generated by binaries to identify malicious packages and software components that have licensing issues.

    Sharan Hiremath, senior product manager for JFrog, said JFrog Curation is an extension of the JFrog Artifactory binary repository that the company provides to enable organizations to manage their software supply chains.

    JFrog Curation also validates software packages against JFrog’s Security Research library of recorded Critical Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) and publicly available information to help establish a trusted repository of pre-approved, third-party software components.

    That approach automatically employs the JFrog Xray scanning tool to eliminate the need to individually scan each package before developers employ them, said Hiremath.

    Making sure open source software components are secure is often problematic because developers download them from public repositories that are frequently targeted by cybercriminals. There have now been more than 100,000 instances of malicious software packages discovered in repositories in the last year alone, noted Hiremath.

    In addition, cybercriminals have become adept at creating fake repositories that mimic legitimate repositories; that can result in developers downloading software components infected with malware.

    JFrog Curation takes the shift left concept of application security to the next level by automatically blocking the use of risky open source software packages, noted Hiremath. The JFrog platform will also surface advice on how to remediate any vulnerability discovered, in addition to creating an audit trail to enable organizations to comply with various regulatory mandates.

    While open source software components reduce the cost of application development, from a cybersecurity perspective, it’s the wild, wild West, noted Hiremath. Organizations are trying to bring more discipline to the way software is constructed by adopting DevSecOps best practices, but they need an approach that doesn’t introduce any additional friction into the application development process, he added.

    JFrog Curation addresses that issue by addressing cybersecurity and compliance issues before any open source component becomes part of the build, said Hiremath.

    As regulations to hold organizations more accountable for the security of the software they deploy are being proposed around the world, it’s only a matter of time before organizations must revisit the security of their software supply chains. Cybercriminals have already proven how adept they are at injecting malware into software components that could be used in thousands of downstream applications. In the eyes of regulators, organizations that don’t scan open source software for malware and vulnerabilities are engaging in reckless behavior that will warrant stiff penalties.

    The challenge is that, after giving developers free rein to develop software any way they see fit, organizations are now faced with a challenge that is as much cultural as it is technical. Automated processes will naturally play a key role in curbing aberrant behavior in application development, but there is, as always, no substitute for some good old-fashioned common sense.

  • CodeLogic Toolkit Increases Visibility Into App Dependencies

    CodeLogic Toolkit Increases Visibility Into App Dependencies

    CodeLogic launched today a toolkit that enables developers to scan binaries, runtime application behavior and database connections and then leverage graph technology to identify connections and dependencies in real-time.

    Brian Pierce, CodeLogic CEO, said the goal is to make it simpler for developers to identify the relationship between application elements to increase overall productivity and simplify the addition of new members to an application development project.

    In general, most developers add code to applications without really having much visibility into how that code might impact other components. The toolkit created by CodeLogic is an extension of the company’s existing continuous software intelligence (CSI) platform that employs server software to store and process data collected via its agent software. The goal is to make it easier for developers to directly consume those insights via a toolkit they can access directly from within, for example, an integrated development environment (IDE), said Pierce.

    As applications become more complex in the age of microservices, it becomes more challenging to understand all the dependencies between application components. Developers require greater visibility into applications to better manage the break/fix process that inevitably occurs when new code is added to any environment. The CodeLogic CSI platform provides an automated impact score for methods, classes and the overall health of an application as code is developed to provide that visibility.

    That information also plays a critical role in enabling IT teams to understand the implications any newly discovered vulnerability might have on the application environment, added Pierce.

    Overall, the level of technical debt that organizations accumulate over time saps developer productivity, he noted. The more difficult it becomes to add code to an application environment the less likely it is that developers will enthusiastically make the effort, said Pierce. Before too long, the number of updates made to an application environment starts to decline, he noted.

    Developer productivity has become a major issue simply because the number of applications that organizations now want to build and deploy is exceeding the financial resources they have available to hire or contract developers. The more time developers spend studying how an application has been constructed the less time there is to write code and drive innovation. In fact, the more frustrating it becomes to add code the more likely it becomes developers will move on to a company with much less friction involved in building and deploying applications, said Pierce.

    There are many senior IT leaders that also need visibility into application environments before approving projects. Many IT teams discover that there are multiple projects or other teams writing duplicate code or replicating existing functions. Regardless of the reason, more developers are voting with their feet when they feel their time and effort is not fully appreciated.

  • JFrog Acquires Vdoo to Advance DevSecOps

    JFrog Acquires Vdoo to Advance DevSecOps

    JFrog today announced it has agreed to acquire Vdoo for $300 million in cash to gain a set of analytics tools that discover vulnerabilities in application binaries.

    Vdoo’s scanning tools, infused with machine learning algorithms, will be fully integrated with the JFrog Xray vulnerability detection tools along with the rest of the JFrog continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform in 2022. In the meantime, the Vdoo scanning tool will continue to be made available via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that Vdoo built.

    The Vdoo platform is already integrated with the JFrog Artifactory repository and JFrog Pipelines. Vdoo’s platform also is integrated with DockerHub, Jenkins, GitHub, GitLab and Azure Pipelines via REST application programming interfaces (APIs) that make the Vdoo scanning tools accessible via a command line interface (CLI).

    JFrog CTO Yoav Landman said acquiring Vdoo is critical because when it comes to implementing DevSecOps best practices, the only meaningful place to discover and remediate vulnerabilities is in the binaries deployed in production environments. As such, the Vdoo platform provides a superior alternative to both static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic application security testing (DAST) tools that scan for vulnerabilities in source code, added Landman.

    Developers require accurate intelligence that can be quickly acted upon to secure applications running in production. They can quickly take action once they know how a specific vulnerability impacts a binary, versus being told to update source code that could take days or weeks to complete, noted Landman. The Vdoo platform also makes it possible to leverage machine learning algorithms to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, malware, exploits, backdoors, supply chain risks and other threats before they become commonly known. Those vulnerabilities can be detected in everything from application binaries to firmware running on embedded devices. Vdoo is also recognized by the Mitre Corp. that oversees the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database as a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA) for discovering vulnerabilities.

    JFrog Vdoo

    As responsibility for application security continues to shift left toward developers, many organizations are finding the tools that cybersecurity teams employed to discover threats don’t lend themselves to the workflows that developers have created to build applications. As a result, many of these tools are being replaced by developer-friendly alternatives that developers can invoke via a CLI as part of DevOps workflow. The goal, now, needs to be reducing the level of noise created by security tools to enable developers to focus on the vulnerabilities that specifically impact their code, noted Landman. Otherwise, developers are simply overwhelmed by a massive number of alerts generated by security tools that often don’t appear to be especially relevant, Landman added.

    It’s not clear how quickly responsibility for application security is shifting left. However, in the wake of a series of high-profile software supply chain breaches, the urgency surrounding adoption of DevSecOps best practices has increased considerably. The challenge, as always, is getting the right tools into the hands of developers at the right time.

  • JFrog Adds Private Distribution Network for App Binaries

    JFrog Adds Private Distribution Network for App Binaries

    At its online swampUP conference today, JFrog launched a Private Distribution Network (PDN) that makes it simpler and faster to distribute application binaries across an extended enterprise.

    Yoav Landman, JFrog CTO, said the PDN provides the equivalent of a content delivery network (CDN) designed specifically for distributing application binaries using a peer-to-peer network managed by JFrog. Each binary distributed is an immutable signed release that provides visibility and traceability to validate the source destination as well as the integrity of the binary, added Landman. That approach essentially applies concepts from a blockchain network to the distribution of application binaries, noted Landman.

    The PDN is based on patent-pending network optimization technology that employs caching, distribution nodes and lightweight accelerators that enable IT teams to distribute binaries through inbound-only firewalls or to environments that have limited connectivity, said Landman.

    Finally, the PDN also comes with tools to analyze binaries for open source security vulnerabilities and compliance with license policies in addition to role-based access controls (RBAC).

    Landman said the goal is to provide a way to distribute binaries via a single click all the way to edge computing platforms in a way that is tightly integrated with the continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines and software development life cycle (SDLC) processes a DevOps team already employs.

    Currently available via a private beta, PDN is scheduled to become available in the third quarter 2021 with pricing based on a per-use model that requires no upfront costs.

    JFrog

    For years now, JFrog has been making a case for applying DevOps best practices to the deployment of binaries rather than just managing source code. As enterprise IT environments become more distributed, the need to manage the deployment of binaries at scale becomes more acute. IT teams are not going to be able to dispatch software engineers to manually install binaries on every edge computing platform employed. The goal is to provide IT teams with complete transparency into software distribution in a way that makes it simple to address compliance requirements, said Landman.

    Most organizations already find deploying software to be a major challenge. CI processes are generally well understood as part of any application development process. CD has proven to be a more elusive goal, because each target platform on which software is destined to run tends to be unique, which makes automating the delivery process challenging. That issue is only going to be more difficult to address as organizations attempt to install software across hundreds, or even thousands, of edge computing platforms that might be based on a wide range of types of platforms. A PDN alleviates many of these issues by providing IT teams with a network to centrally manage the process, noted Landman.

    At this point it’s now only a matter of time before most organizations confront this next major DevOps challenge. As organizations look to process and analyze data at the edge to drive any number of digital processes in near real-time, the amount of software deployed outside of a cloud or traditional data center is about to explode. The challenge now, of course, is finding the most efficient way to secure delivery of all that code.