cyber-resilience

Cyber resilience is critical for innovation and economic sustainability

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The events of the last few years have highlighted the world’s vulnerabilities and shown the importance of building resilience into organisations, supply chains and the global economy. COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine have exposed issues we’d chosen to ignore, thought we’d fixed forever or hadn’t even considered before. Growth is no longer guaranteed. The global economy’s increasing reliance on technology to enable the world to function extends the attack surface and opens up new cyber security threats.

The need for cyber security to protect sustainable growth

Governments are struggling with plans for sustainable economic growth against a background of conflict, continuing supply chain problems, climate change, rising prices and interest rate increases. Typical sustainable development goals include; economic growth measured by GDP; business innovation and infrastructure renewal; creating sustainable cities and communities; and responsible consumption of products.

From smart cities, to renewable energy, financial infrastructures and driverless transport, cutting-edge technology is at the heart of our drive for sustainable growth. This provides exciting opportunities but has also exposed existing systems’ weaknesses and created new vulnerabilities to malicious actors. Sustainable development goals are all put at risk by the increased threat from cyber attacks.

Organisations have become familiar with safety and security measures which protect their physical environment such as installing early warning sensors, security cameras, fire safety equipment and intruder alarms. There’s a need for a cultural shift for executives, investors, employees and regulators to recognise the increasing importance of cyber security. The war in Ukraine has brought into sharp relief the importance of having both strong physical and cyber defences. Cyber resilience is absolutely necessary for modern civilisation to survive and flourish. 

How big is the cyber threat?

Recent research and headlines point to cyber crime being very big business indeed. One study showed cyber criminals raking in $1.5 trillion every year. To put that in context that’s exactly the same amount proposed for the US Congress’ bipartisan package to help Ukraine and finance federal agencies for the second half of 2022. Another study from Cybersecurity Ventures expects global cybercrime costs to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. This led Steve Morgan, Editor-in-Chief at Cybercrime Magazine to comment, “This represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history, risks the incentives for innovation and investment, is exponentially larger than the damage inflicted from natural disasters in a year, and will be more profitable than the global trade of all major illegal drugs combined.”

Innovation is a growing target for cyber criminals

Innovation and invention are seen as good things for businesses and the wider economy. They power economic growth and prosperity around the world but by their very nature they can open the door to cyber criminals. Innovation is all about new technologies, products and ways of working. The cloud gaming sector is a prime example of an industry that has attracted the attentions of hackers, due to its  constant growth, developing new platforms and introducing new products almost daily. As the industry transitions to cloud infrastructures, the market size was estimated at $609.67 million in 2021, and is expected to grow to $7.382 billion by the end of 2028 according to research by Brandessence. Change, as in this case, often comes at dizzying speed. This means that procedures, controls, security and monitoring may lag behind. Ripping up the rule book to innovate can have huge positives but organisations need to watch for the negatives too. Indeed, some of the largest cyber security incidents in 2022 were targeted at the gaming sector, with breaches reported by such behemoths as Rockstar, Roblox and NVIDIA, to name just a few. 

Rapidly expanding sectors and businesses naturally also attract huge investment. This makes them even more attractive for wily cyber criminals as the rewards from attacks can be particularly lucrative. Another pertinent example is the renewable energy sector. This growing industry promises great things for our hopes of preserving the world we live in. Massive investment means it is also shaping up to be a very attractive market for cyber criminals. 

Jim Guinn, global managing director for cyber security in energy, chemicals, utilities and mining at Accenture has noted, “The cybersecurity conversation in the renewable energy engineering and construction business is almost nonexistent today.” It is imperative that such industries underpin their expansion with the appropriate focus on defence against cyber attacks.

Protecting your software stack

The way today’s technology solutions are created using a jigsaw puzzle of multiple pieces including published APIs, integration with proprietary products, cloud applications from different vendors, open source components all combined with in-house developments means that many organisations are unsure about their complete Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs). This means vulnerabilities are literally built into critical systems introducing undocumented threat vectors which can be used by hackers to gain access to proprietary systems and data.

This lack of knowledge about an organisation’s SBOMs means that even when a bug or vulnerability is identified in the open source community and patches created, the business can be completely unaware  of the fact that it needs to take remedial action. There are many examples of this type of oversight resulting in huge costs and disruption for business.

Secure by default – building resilience

In 2023, developers and publishers of software must focus on Secure by Default principles if systems are to avoid the kind of failures due to poor security posture and an over reliance on end-users to act in a secure manner. The user experience is an integral part of the security features of a system, because if security makes software inconvenient to use, end-users will simply find a workaround. If security isn’t second nature then it’s no security at all.  The UK Government has introduced tough new regulations in the Telecommunications (Security) Act which includes the requirement to have a deep understanding of security risks, including those within the supply chain. This builds on the premise that ‘edge’ devices such as radio masts, internet equipment, or wifi routers supplied to customers should be protected from cyber attack. 

NCSC Technical Director Dr Ian Levy made the point: “We increasingly rely on our telecoms networks for our daily lives, our economy and the essential services we all use. These new regulations will ensure that the security and resilience of those networks, and the equipment that underpins them, is appropriate for the future.”

Online risks spill over into the physical world

Increasingly, online services are impacting people in the real world.  A high profile example is the fall out from the 2017 Equifax data breach, which it is estimated to have cost the company at least $1.38 billion, with some sources suggesting the final bill could be closer to $2 billion. The root cause of the data breach was the failure to patch a known open source web application security flaw. This left the cyber doorway open for criminals to enter and cause havoc. Over 140 million U.S. consumers’ data was affected, putting them at risk of future financial instability—being unable to rent housing, being denied a loan, having to pay higher interest rates on credit cards or mortgages, and greater difficulty in getting a job, not to mention the distress and anxiety identity theft causes.

A more recent example, described as the biggest hack in history that affected telco Optus, led to one in three Australians at risk of identity theft or fraud. As a result, 10,000 victims have had their personal details published online and millions of people are scrambling to change their online driving licenses.  T-Mobile data breach that affected 37 million accounts was detected in January 2023 but the weakness in the API had been exploited since November 2022.

Automating Development & Security Operations (DevSecOps)

As software development accelerates and the attacks of malicious actors continue to increase in speed and intensity, organisations must ensure their security operations are equipped to respond equally fast. Preventative strategies can be built into the development workflow to ensure that DevSecOps processes are efficient and maintain the appropriate vigilance without wasting human resources.  Such processes become operationally effective if for every critical patch released, the security and development teams are ready with normal business practice to identify the threat, confirm its presence in their application software estate and remediate as quickly as possible as part of business as usual.  Without DevSecOps, such operations can take days to weeks, but forward thinking teams will have worked this out so such incidents take minutes to hours, thus preventing unauthorised access or infiltration of malware via an open source vulnerability.

With some 64% of companies impacted in 2021 by supply chain attacks, mostly due to increased reliance on open source software components, organisations must be scrupulous about checking that underlying dependencies are safe from vulnerabilities. A further study showed such attacks were up 300% compared to the preceding year.  Businesses that prepare thoroughly against such risks will be well rewarded.  Not only are they underpinning their own operations, ensuring that their business can continue to grow and innovate without hindrance from malicious attacks, they protect their reputation by providing reliable products and services to their customers. In turn, customers know that they can trust their supplier, building loyalty in the business that transcends a purely transactional relationship. 

Ensuring that technology works as it should has long been a given. Now it is an expectation that tech works securely, protecting personally identifiable information, while still providing a great user experience, so that people can get on with their lives, knowing that their trusted suppliers are looking after their data securely. It is a challenge for the entire technology industry, but one on which our very way of life depends.

Visit www.meterian.io to learn how Meterian can help secure your businesses’ open source components to reduce the threats of cyber attacks.

Cyber resilience is critical for innovation and economic sustainability

Want Cyber Insurance? Better get patching!

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Want Cyber Insurance? Better get patching!

Managing the technology stack and known vulnerabilities is becoming a key criteria for  cyber insurance pay outs

Open source software has once again made the headlines following warnings to organisations about the release of a new version of OpenSSL. Released on 1st November 2022, the new version patched vulnerabilities in version 3.0 and above of the nearly ubiquitously used cryptographic library for encrypting communications on the Internet.

The OpenSSL Project team took the unusual step of pre-warning organisations five days ahead of the 1st November release date that a critical update was being issued to address the vulnerabilities. This came as a surprise to many as the OpenSSL library rarely has critical vulnerabilities, but due to its popularity and widespread use, organisations were advised to be cautious and to prepare. 

Based on the assessment by the OpenSSL team, the vulnerabilities can be exploited and trigger data leakage or remote code execution. It is hard to predict the potential damage and risk of these vulnerabilities, which is why it’s vital for organisations to act swiftly, determine any use of the affected OpenSSL and patch immediately if they are exposed to the vulnerabilities. However, as these vulnerabilities were classified as “high severity” and not critical as initially thought, widespread exploitation is not expected. 

Open Source the foundation of modern software

The benefits of open source software are numerous and well known, so let’s be clear open source is not the problem – our ability to learn from the past is. 

There have been a couple of big open source incidents in the last year that have sent shock waves through the cyber security world. Firstly, the vulnerability in the widely deployed Log4J component, and now this new vulnerability in OpenSSL. This is only the second such flaw ever found in the open source encryption project. The first was Heartbleed.

The December 2021 zero-day vulnerability in the Java logger Log4J, known as Log4Shell, was characterised by many security experts as the single biggest, most critical vulnerability of the last decade. If left unpatched, attackers can hack into systems, steal passwords and logins, extract data, and infect networks with malicious software causing untold damage, not least to brand reputations. 

Unfortunately, a situation that specialty insurer Crum & Forster, owned by Fairfax, know all too well after falling victim to the hacking group known as RansomHouse. Despite widespread news coverage of the Log4shell vulnerability, which was revealed in December 2021, it appears the insurer was still vulnerable. 

The breach at Crum & Forster was first discovered on 22nd July 2022. The hacking group were able to exploit an unpatched system, resulting in a total of 1.7 gigabytes of sensitive data being released, including medical information, insurance policies, employee data, and customer lists. 

Crum & Forster are by no means an isolated case, there are many examples over the years of companies falling victim to known vulnerabilities. 

History repeating itself

The Heartbleed vulnerability, discovered in 2014, impacted hundreds of thousands of web and email servers worldwide. Among the many systems confirmed to be affected were large organisations such as Yahoo, Eventbrite, and even the FBI’s own website. Many of the big companies confirmed to be affected were able to get their ducks in a row and patch before anything severe happened. 

Others weren’t so quick off the mark and hackers were able to exploit the vulnerability in several cases. The Canadian Revenue Agency was one of the many victims that suffered a breach as hackers exploited the Heartbleed vulnerability. The breach resulted in the theft of hundreds of social ID numbers in a six-hour period before the Canadian Revenue Agency realised and removed public access to its online services. 

In the aftermath of a breach, companies are quick to express that lessons will be learnt. Unfortunately, in a case of history repeating itself, the Canadian Revenue Agency was once again hitting the headlines. In 2017, just 3 years after Heartbleed, the company had to shut down its website for filing federal taxes due to falling victim to the open source Apache Struts2 vulnerability. 

Fail to patch, plan to fail 

Several years on from when Heartbleed was discovered and a patch issued, there are still servers harbouring the Heartbleed vulnerability. In November 2020, a security researcher at the SANS Internet Storms Centre discovered that over 200,00 machines are still vulnerable to Heartbleed. The news cycle may have moved on but that doesn’t mean unpatched vulnerabilities have disappeared. 

Too many headlines are showing that hacks have one thing in common, they are caused by a known vulnerability within an open source component. 

A well know example is the Equifax data breach in 2017, which remains one of the largest cybercrimes related to identity theft. The private records of 147.9 million Americans along with 15.2 million British citizens and approximately 19,000 Canadian citizens were compromised in the breach. 

A key security patch for open source software Apache Struts was released by the Apache Software Foundation on 7 March 2017 after a security exploit was found. All users of the framework were urged to patch immediately. 

For one reason or another, the patching process within Equifax completely broke down, resulting in vulnerable systems being left open to compromise. Subsequent scans conducted by the Equifax IT department to identify any vulnerable systems appears to have failed and, as the saying goes, the rest is history. 

The cost of downplaying security

Recent estimates suggest the 2017 Equifax data breach cost the company at least $1.38 billion, with some sources suggesting the final bill could be closer to $2 billion. The root cause of the data breach was the failure to patch a known open-source web application security flaw. The company effectively left the door open for cyber criminals to walk in and wreak havoc.

In the aftermath of the breach Equifax was condemned for its lax security posture, shambolic emergency response and poor leadership, which led to many senior executives being accused of corruption. The Equifax breach investigation highlighted several security lapses that allowed attackers to enter, allegedly secure, systems and exfiltrate terabytes of data. 

More than five years on, the Equifax data breach remains a cautionary tale in failing to manage cyber security risk effectively and lacking the tools and processes to implement a robust vulnerability and patch management regime.  

Cyber Insurance: prove it or risk losing it

Cybercrime has become a highly lucrative operation; it is not going away and is only set to worsen as companies continue to engage digital technology. Many have taken out cyber insurance to insulate themselves from the punishing costs of cyber-attacks and data breaches. 

However, companies across the world are likely to face increases in the cost of insurance as the number of claims increase year on year. According to research conducted by FitchRatings, US claims volume has risen 100 percent annually over the past three years. 

In part as a result, the cost of cyber insurance has risen steeply in 2022 in both the US and the UK. According to Marsh, the UK cyber insurance market experienced a pricing increase of 102% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2022.

As a result of rising claim costs, the insurance industry is tightening their qualifying requirements and limiting their coverage. Cyber insurers now require organisations to provide information about their security controls if they want coverage. This can include technical, procedural, and human controls. 

Keeping track of your open source exposure

Software Bill of Materials (SBoMs) are an emerging approach to keeping track of your software dependencies, both open source and commercial. SBOMs provide the ingredients list to understanding what code exists within the applications that your business relies upon. 

Only by understanding what exists inside applications can organisations evaluate their exposure to risk. Used effectively, SBOMs enable companies to evaluate and target remediation efforts. But most importantly, companies won’t be blindsided when the next big open source vulnerability is announced. 

Known vulnerabilities are your responsibility 

Many cyber insurers have tightened their standards and are no longer paying out for breaches that have resulted from a known vulnerability. This should serve as a sharp wakeup call to boardrooms that deploy technology, with little thought to the security implications. If companies want to ensure they continue to receive all the benefits of their policy, it’s vital that they have a rigorous patch management system. Corporates may have short memories when it comes to known vulnerabilities but, as the evidence shows, cyber criminals do not. 

Companies must increase visibility and transparency of the components in their open-source software and applications if they are to stay one step ahead of cyber criminals. Without continuous management of your governance, risk, and compliance of open source your company is walking a tight rope, without a safety net. Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Want Cyber Insurance? Better get patching!

URGENT AND CRITICAL: REMOTE CODE EXECUTION IN VARIOUS SPRING COMPONENTS NEEDS IMMEDIATE ATTENTION

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Red alert! All enterprise software maintainers of software using Java libraries need to check if their systems are affected by the newly discovered vulnerabilities “Spring4Shell” since its announcement, between 29th and 30th March, 2022, affecting various Spring components.

CVE-2022-22963

Vulnerability Score: 9.5 (CVSS: 3.0 / AV:N / AC:L / PR:N / UI:N / S:U / C:H / I:H / A:H)
Platform: Java
Components: org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-function-core, org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-function-context
Affected versions: 3.1.6, 3.2.2 and older unsupported versions
Fixed in version: 3.1.7, 3.2.3

CVE-2022-22965

Vulnerability Score: 9.5 (CVSS:3.0 / AV: N / AC:L / PR:N / UI:N / S:U / C:H / I:H / A:H)
Platform: Java
Components: org.springframework:spring-beans
Affected versions: all versions before 5.2.20, all versions before 5.3.18 
Fixed in version: 5.2.20, 5.3.18

Please note that this affects also the spring-framework package and the spring-boot package, that both use the offending libraries. New versions of such packages have been made available. You can upgrade spring-framework to version 5.2.20 or 5.3.18, and you can upgrade spring-boot to version 2.5.12 or 2.6.6 (note that spring-boot itself includes spring-framework, no other upgrades necessary).

Which systems does these affect?

CVE-2022-22963 affects any project built using a vulnerable version of Spring Cloud, a framework that provides tools for developers to quickly build some of the common patterns in distributed systems. The “functions” part is a subsystem used to implement serverless functions like AWS lambda or Google Cloud Functions: if you are using such subsystem you are potentially affected.

CVE-2022-22965 affects any project built using a vulnerable version of Spring Framework, Spring Boot or the library spring-beans. A successful attack, however, can only be conducted undere these conditions:

  • JDK 9 or higher is used as the runtime environment
  • Apache Tomcat is used as the Servlet container
  • The application is packaged as a traditional WAR (in contrast to a Spring Boot executable jar)
  • There is a dependency with spring-webmvc or spring-webflux, or an endpoint is used with DataBinder enabled

Please note however that analysis are undergoing and the nature of the vulnerability is quite general: we suggest you keep monitoring this page for further updates.


Why do these threats demand an urgent patch?

Both vulnerabilities allows the attacker to remotely execute code on your system, with the ability to gain complete control of the underlying servers. It’s a simple exploit, as it requires only to send a crafted HTTP header in a request in order to execute code on the remote host. These vulnerabilities are actively exploited in the wild.


How can I check if my system is affected?

If you maintain any software using Java libraries, check if you are using any Spring Cloud Function library. The  Meterian BOSS scanner can be used to scan your codebase to identify all dependent software libraries.  If it is using the offending package, it will find the affected vulnerable versions and provide more information on how to mitigate this risk.

If you are a developer and you have access to the code, you can simply execute this command from your terminal:

CVE-2022-22963:

$ mvn dependency:tree | grep spring-cloud-function | grep compile
[INFO] +- org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-function-core:jar:3.1.2:compile

If you see any response lines, check the version: if it’s below 3.1.7 (as in the above example) or, if using 3.2.x, below 3.2.3, you may be affected.

CVE-2022-22965:

$ mvn dependency:tree | grep spring-beans | grep compile
[INFO] +- org.springframework:spring-beans:jar:5.3.11:compile

If you see any response lines, check the version: if it’s below 5.3.18 (as in the above example) or, if using 5.2.x, below 5.2.20, you may be affected.


My system has the vulnerable spring cloud function library — how can I mitigate the risk?

There are now patched versions of the affected components that resolve the issues, they are available via the standard Maven repositories. Upgrade the offending packages using the patched versions, as described in this article.

If the library is coming from a transitive dependency (it’s not one of your direct dependencies, but a dependency of them) you can just include an override in your root pom.xml (or where applicable) and retest that it’s not there anymore with the command shown before.

CVE-2022-22963:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-cloud-function-core</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.7</version>
    </dependency>

Please be aware that there are multiple packages rooted in "spring-cloud-function": you will need to upgrade all of them, in particular "spring-cloud-function-context" which is also directly affected.

CVE-2022-22965:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
        <version>5.3.18</version>
    </dependency>

Please be aware that you may need / may be better to upgrade the parent pom of the project using an unaffected version of spring boot / spring framework (see at the start of the article).


What can I do to proactively protect from such vulnerabilities?

We always suggest you regularly scan your software code bases. 

  • To do a scan from the command line using the Meterian CLI scanner
  • To include this as part of your continuous improvement efforts to build resilience into your software development lifecycle, see our documentation on the various integrations we support with GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps Pipelines, and others.


Are Meterian applications affected by the spring vulnerability?

We have verified our applications and none are using the offending packages in a vulnerable configuration. We maintain a continuous monitoring system to ensure our development operations are up to date with the latest known vulnerabilities in software components. Given the nature of this vulnerability we will be running a specific monitoring for the following days, while more details are unfolded in regards to those vulnerabilities.   

Related references

CVE-2022-22963

CVE-2022-22965

URGENT AND CRITICAL: REMOTE CODE EXECUTION IN VARIOUS SPRING COMPONENTS NEEDS IMMEDIATE ATTENTION

Visibility is vital if we are to improve safety and trust in open source

viviandufour, , , , Leave a comment
Image shows an observation deck, but the panorama is veiled behind white light or mist showing blank skies. Do we know or see what we are building in our digital world?

Photo by Kate Trysh on Unsplash

Recent high profile cyber security incidents have reinforced the importance of cleaning up the open-source software supply chain. From Heartbleed to the Apache Software Foundation’s Log4j vulnerability, these highly publicised incidents have exposed the threats associated with the software supply chain.

Open source security vulnerabilities are nothing new. Heartbleed was a security bug in the OpenSSL cryptography library that affected many systems. Similarly, Log4Shell is a severe vulnerability, however in the case of Log4j the number of affected systems could well run into potentially billions. Many cybersecurity experts have characterised Log4Shell as the single biggest, most critical vulnerability of the last decade.

These incidents have brought into sharp focus the risks and galvanised a range of responses at national and international level. It even prompted the White House to convene an Open Source Software Security Summit in January that was attended by leaders from global technology companies including Google, Meta, Apple, and Cisco. Members of the open source community were also represented at the summit, as well as US government agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the National Security Council and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The gathering may have been precipitated by the Log4Shell vulnerability, but the wider context was clear. How do we ensure source code, build, and distribution integrity to achieve effective open source security management?

Open source under the microscope

Technology companies have been using open source for years as it speeds up innovation and time to market. Indeed, most major software developments include open source software – including software used by the national security community.

Open source software brings unique value, but it also has unique security challenges. It is used extensively, however, the responsibility of ongoing security maintenance is carried out by a community of dedicated volunteers. These security incidents have demonstrated that the use of open source is so ubiquitous that no company can blindly continue in the mode of business as usual. Recent research showed that 73% of applications scanned have at least one vulnerability[1]. These can be buried deep in the open source software supply chain that software-driven businesses rely on for basic functionality and security to accelerate their time to market.

The known unknown

The concept of known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns has been widely used as a risk assessment methodology. When it comes to cybersecurity and the voracity of threat actors to exploit vulnerabilities, it is a useful analogy.

Let’s take Apache Log4J as an example. Companies often create products by assembling open source and commercial software components. Almost all software will have some form of ability to journal activity and Log4j is a very common component used for this.

How do you quickly patch what you don’t know you have?

Java logger Log4j 2 – A zero-day vulnerability

Log4J was originally released in 2001, and over the last 20 years it has been used in billions of software developments and applications across the world. For logging incidents within software, Log4j is used by everything from the humble 404 error message, gaming software such as Minecraft, and Cloud providers such as iCloud and Amazon Web Services, as well as for all manner of software and security tools.2 On 9 December 2021, the zero-day vulnerability in the Java logger Log4j 2, known as Log4Shell, sent shockwaves across organisations as security teams scrambled to patch the flaw. If left unfixed, attackers can break into systems, steal passwords and logins, extract data, and infect networks with malicious software causing untold damage, not least to brand reputations.

However, herein lies the problem. How do you quickly patch what you don’t know you have?

Often in the race to innovate, the first thing sacrificed is up-to-date documentation. Without it how does a company know if Log4J is integrated within its application estate, let alone know if it has been previously patched.

Improving safety and trust when speed is of the essence

If we are to increase safety and trust in software, we must improve transparency and visibility across the entire software supply chain. Companies should have the ability to automatically identify open source components in order to monitor and manage security risk from publicly disclosed vulnerabilities. A software bill of materials (SBOM) should be a minimum for any project or development. Without such visibility of all component parts, security teams cannot manage risk and will be unaware, and potentially exposed, to dangers lurking in their software.

Case study – Full Visibility within an Hour

To give an example; one of the largest UK based financial services company with millions of customers across the world discovered it had Log4J embedded within dozens of in-house developed software projects. Having seen the first reports of the vulnerability at the start of the business day, within an hour the security team had identified projects using Log4j and were able to start work on follow up activities. By the end of the day, the entire business had a concise list of projects at risk, some of which were already remediated.

How was this achieved?

The company had automated tooling integrated into their software development environment with comprehensive component security. This enabled them to quickly identify those software projects which depended on the affected log4j component.

This visibility allowed the company to devise remediation plans to mitigate the risks of the vulnerability in Log4J. The company was able to target valuable resources across multiple locations to ensure fixes were applied quickly to critical business applications within just a couple of hours. While they were implementing an action plan based on the organisation’s use of Log4j, some of its competitors without such comprehensive tools were still in the information gathering stage.

Innovating securely

As organisations continue to innovate at pace in order to reduce time to market, the reliance on open source software continues to increase. However, when the security of a widely-used open source component or application is compromised, every company, every country, and every community is impacted.

The White House has taken an important first step in trying to identify the challenges present in the open source software supply chain and encourage the sharing of ideas on ways to mitigate risk and enhance resilience. Organisations can and should take advantage of the many benefits that open source software can deliver, but they must not do it blindly. Ensuring you know the exact make-up of your technology stack including all the component parts is an important first step. Choosing discovery tools that have the widest comprehensive coverage is important, and so too is the flexibility to grade alerts so that only the most pressing threats are highlighted. This avoids ‘alert fatigue’ and enables security teams to focus resource where it matters most, putting organisations in a good position to act fast when vulnerabilities are discovered.

Hackers faced with stronger security defences will continue to turn their attention to the weaker underbelly of the software supply chain. Now is the time for organisations to implement integrated and automated tooling to gain comprehensive risk control of components in their open-source software supply chain. Only by increasing visibility, coverage of known unknowns and transparency can companies stay one step ahead.

1 Meterian research from aggregated and anonymised data of 2044 scanned software applications in 2020.

2 “What is Log4j? A cybersecurity expert explains the latest internet vulnerability”, The Conversation, Dec 21, 2022, https://theconversation.com/what-is-log4j-a-cybersecurity-expert-explains-the-latest-internet-vulnerability-how-bad-it-is-and-whats-at-stake-173896

Visibility is vital if we are to improve safety and trust in open source

An introduction to the world of SBOMs

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3 minute read

We are sure many of you have been hearing about SBOMs. Nowadays, software include some components with code written by your own developers, but 80-90% of the code is typically from third-party developers. How can you know who produced what and when it absolutely needs to be replaced? Since Meterian has been managing SBOMs for awhile, we’re happy to share our know-how so you can consider a comprehensive strategy to manage your open source software supply chain. 

Photo by Raymond Rasmusson on Unsplash

What is an SBOM?

SBOM is an acronym that means Software Bill Of Materials. The concept originates from the manufacturing industry, where a bill of materials lists dependent components in machinery. A SBOM lists all third-party components present in your application. A good SBOM also lists the licences used by each component and, when possible, the specific copyright attribution. An excellent SBOM can also provide further information, such as possible relationships between those components to better understand any supply chain risk. You may have encountered SBOMs in the past, known as “third party notice” documents created to manage legal requirements, such as the one in the image below. 

Altova Third Party Software License Notice

However, modern SBOMs are “machine-readable”.  They follow a strict specification that can be understood by a computer. 

What machine-readable formats are used to publish SBOMs?

The most commonly used formats to define a SBOM are:

  • CycloneDX, a lightweight open-source standard designed for use in application security context and supply chain component analysis. This originated from within the OWASP community.
  • SPDX, an open source format with origins in the Linux Foundation, slightly more complex, and recently approved as ISO/IEC standard in version 2.2.1 as ISO IEC 5962:2021.
  • SWID, another ISO/IEC industry standard used by various commercial software publishers.

All these formats support a variety of use cases, but the first two (CycloneDX and SPDX) are the most versatile. Due to SPDX’s complexity, we think CycloneDX has an edge at this time, but only time can tell which of these formats will be the winner. To learn more about these formats you can also read the official NTIA publication, which drills down into the matter.

Why are SBOMs important? And how are they useful?

As a consumer of software, the main reason why you want to have access to the SBOMs of the systems you are using is to manage risks. When a very commonly used software component becomes vulnerable: how do you know what you need to patch and which subsystems are at risk? This is exactly what happened with the recent Log4Shell debacle. The logging library called Log4j, was suddenly exploitable with a very simple and repeatable attack. How do you know where it is? Which one of the systems you are using is suddenly at risk?  With a correctly managed archive of SBOMs, getting this information reduces to a very simple lookup task. Without it, it can be a real nuisance —a time consuming information hunt that disrupts everyone’s work flow.

As a producer of software, instead, you want to preserve and maintain an archive of all the SBOMs of the system you produce so that you can create and distribute timely patches to your customers. Having a systematic and comprehensive analysis of your most commonly used software packages would be useful indeed. Some companies were very fast in releasing patches to their customers, while others were extremely slow, mostly because they did not have the information.  You probably want to be in the first group of companies 🙂

Governments are also mandating the need for use of SBOMs, realising that software security needs to be regulated.  The U.S. Executive Order 14028 that mandates all federal agencies to require SBOMs from their suppliers.  This not only impacts the companies that have direct sales to the US government but also their own software suppliers.  As so many systems and devices have been connecting to the Internet to send and receive information, consequently our digital world relies on a software supply chain.  This “ripple effect” will be significant for many industries. 

It’s important to consider how software products you produce can meet basic security requirements and how the associated software security information is produced and managed in your organisation.   Similar legislation has already been proposed in Europe since the publication of  “Guidelines for securing the IoT” by ENISA (hint: SBOMs are required) and the ETSI EN 303 645 global standard for consumer IoT security, which is based on the UK government’s Code of Practice.  See also the recently published Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) Bill and more to come from the UK government to improve the UK’s cyber resilience.

How should SBOMs be handled?

Very carefully :), because an SBOM contains the full list of the “ingredients” of your system or application. While open-source projects happily share this information to the world, the same does not apply to private companies. In fact, a malicious actor that gets hold of the SBOM of your system can then check if you are using any vulnerable components. There are public vulnerability databases, such as the NVD, which are very popular. Someone can simply browse in there and compose a list of possible attacks, try them, and maybe get lucky.  Probably 9 out of 10 vulnerabilities affecting components in your system won’t be exploitable, but having the ability to go through the whole list, certainly makes the task of finding an exploit much easier. 

There’s no need to keep SBOMs a complete secret, however, as long as a few simple principles are kept in check:

  • SBOMs need to be shared securely,
  • they need to be accessed only by the authorised parties, across organisational boundaries, and
  • they should not be tampered with.

In summary, it is essential to produce a precise SBOM, and it is just as vital to share it and maintain it securely with the correct (trusted) third parties.  

Why bother with SBOMs now?

In summary, it is essential to produce a precise SBOM, and it is just as vital to share it and maintain it securely with the correct (trusted) third parties.  In our hyper connected world, comprehensive coverage of components is important for preventative strategies and threat detection in supply chain attacks.  Therefore, implementing SBOM management proactively now will be worth something to your organisation when the next critical vulnerability appears and stand your organisation in good stead. All good collections are worth organising. How valuable is your collection of software?

Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash

Get started with SBOMs

The need for SBOMs is already high. Level up your open source software security and implement this requirement. Check out the SBOM capabilities in Meterian-X platform’s approach to DevSecOps.

An introduction to the world of SBOMs