| ID | Name |
|---|---|
| T1195.001 | Compromise Software Dependencies and Development Tools |
| T1195.002 | Compromise Software Supply Chain |
| T1195.003 | Compromise Hardware Supply Chain |
Adversaries may manipulate software dependencies and development tools prior to receipt by a final consumer for the purpose of data or system compromise. Applications often depend on external software to function properly. Popular open source projects that are used as dependencies in many applications, such as pip and NPM packages, may be targeted as a means to add malicious code to users of the dependency.[1][2][3] This may also include abandoned packages, which in some cases could be re-registered by threat actors after being removed by adversaries.[4] Adversaries may also employ "typosquatting" or name-confusion by choosing names similar to existing popular libraries or packages in order to deceive a user.[5][6][7]
Additionally, CI/CD pipeline components, such as GitHub Actions, may be targeted in order to gain access to the building, testing, and deployment cycles of an application.[8] By adding malicious code into a GitHub action, a threat actor may be able to collect runtime credentials (e.g., viaProc Filesystem) or insert further malicious components into the build pipelines for a second-order supply chain compromise.[9] As GitHub Actions are often dependent on other GitHub Actions, threat actors may be able to infect a large number of repositories via the compromise of a single Action.[10]
Targeting may be specific to a desired victim set or may be distributed to a broad set of consumers but only move on to additional tactics on specific victims.
| ID | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| S1246 | BeaverTail | BeaverTail has been hosted on code repositories and disseminated to victims through NPM packages.[11][12][13][14][15] |
| S0658 | XCSSET | XCSSET adds malicious code to a host's Xcode projects by enumerating CocoaPods |
| ID | Mitigation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| M1013 | Application Developer Guidance | Application developers should be cautious when selecting third-party libraries to integrate into their application. Additionally, where possible, developers should lock software dependencies to specific versions rather than pulling the latest version on build.[17] GitHub Actions may be pinned to a specific commit hash rather than a tag or branch.[8] |
| M1033 | Limit Software Installation | Where possible, consider requiring developers to pull from internal repositories containing verified and approved packages rather than from external ones.[17] |
| M1051 | Update Software | A patch management process should be implemented to check unused dependencies, unmaintained and/or previously vulnerable dependencies, unnecessary features, components, files, and documentation. |
| M1016 | Vulnerability Scanning | Continuous monitoring of vulnerability sources and the use of automatic and manual code review tools should also be implemented as well.[18] |
| ID | Name | Analytic ID | Analytic Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| DET0009 | Supply-chain tamper in dependencies/dev-tools (manager→write/install→first-run→egress) | AN0021 | Adversary manipulates dependencies/dev tools used by developers or CI: a package manager (npm/yarn/pnpm, pip/pipenv, nuget/dotnet, chocolatey/winget, maven/gradle) or a compiler/IDE downloads or restores content; files are written under project paths and execution paths (node_modules, packages, .nuget, .gradle, .m2, %AppData%\npm, %UserProfile%.cargo\bin, temp build dirs). First run of newly written components triggers scripts (preinstall/postinstall), shell/PowerShell spawning, or loader DLLs, followed by network egress to non-approved registries/CDNs. |
| AN0022 | Developer or CI invokes package managers/compilers (apt/yum + build-essential, npm/yarn/pnpm, pip/pip3, gem, cargo, go, maven/gradle). These write executable or script files into PATH or project dirs and immediately execute embedded lifecycle hooks (preinstall/postinstall, setup.py, npm scripts) that spawn shells or curl/wget, followed by egress to unfamiliar registries or domains. | ||
| AN0023 | Developer tools (Homebrew, pip, npm/yarn, Xcode builds) install or update dependencies; new Mach-O or scripts appear under /usr/local, /opt/homebrew, ~/Library/Application Support, project dirs (node_modules/.bin, venv/bin). First run spawns sh/zsh/osascript/curl and new outbound flows; Gatekeeper/AMFI may flag unsigned components. |