As developers play a crucial role in creating the frameworks and applications that power our digital lives, they push the boundaries of innovation, while also encountering security threats that are both complex and easily overlooked.
While traditional security concerns—like data breaches or malware—are commonly discussed, many developers remain unaware of the hidden threats lurking within open-source libraries, third-party tools, and even standard coding practices. These unseen vulnerabilities can have devastating consequences, not only compromising sensitive data but also putting entire systems at risk.
Understanding these hidden security threats is essential to ensuring robust, long-lasting software security. Unaddressed vulnerabilities can allow malicious actors to exploit weak points, infiltrating applications and potentially compromising users’ data and privacy.
Collins Adi, a software engineer, auraroom.xyz, creator, winner of several hackathons on Lisk Blockchain and an enthusiast currently exploring the blockchain space explores some of the most commonly overlooked security risks that developers face and provides actionable strategies for identifying and mitigating them early on.
Child Process Vulnerability
Child Process is an NPM package that helps developers build npm packages to run commands automatically without requiring manual input. It’s commonly used by project scaffolding tools to auto-install packages on your device. Essentially, anything you can run directly in your terminal can also be executed inside your code using “child_process.”
However, bad actors have become more sophisticated and are using this package to run malicious terminal commands to exploit private data.
Exploit Method 1: The Phishing Test
Bad actors can reach out to you pretending to be recruiters with a job offer. After a round of interviews, they may ask you to write a feature for a codebase they provide as a way to test your technical abilities. This code is often in Node.js and frequently includes the “child_process” package.
In many cases, when you implement the required feature, you’ll run the application to test it. The codebase can be so large that you might not review every single file. This is how a hidden script can exploit you as soon as you run the application, and you will not even notice.
Common Misconception
Currently, developers have become more cautious and no longer accept job applications that sound suspiciously lucrative. You might think you can spot these threats by avoiding such offers and steering clear of codebases that contain the “child_process” package without clear usage or that include random, unusable code. But, unfortunately, you are mistaken, and this leads us to the second exploit method.
Exploit Method 2: The NPM Package Trap
If you think you can spot these threats as I suggested, you are very mistaken. Bad actors have become so clever that they no longer make suspicious offers or present large codebases that include the “child_process” package.
Instead, they can clone the child_process code from GitHub since it is open source, publish it on NPM under a different name, and exploit you that way.
Bad actors may offer an NPM package as a scaffolding tool that companies use to set up projects with their preferred folder and code structures. You might install this seemingly harmless NPM package globally and use it to scaffold your project, only to be exploited even before the scaffolding is complete. It could manifest in various ways; it doesn’t necessarily have to be a project scaffolding tool.
Obfuscation: Hiding Malicious Code
Obfuscation is a method used to scramble your code, making it unreadable while keeping all its features intact. Tools like obfuscator.io assist with this process. Attackers can also obfuscate their code and place it in files that may appear to handle errors or are minified for better performance, but they could simply contain malware.
The Exploit in Action
Click here for an educational script that runs a command based on the operating system to search for .env files. It then either writes the results to a file or, worse, could send the data to a malicious server.
It’s crucial for developers to carefully scrutinize the packages they install and avoid running unfamiliar code without fully understanding its purpose. Regularly monitoring projects for suspicious behavior is also essential. Attackers are constantly evolving their methods, but by staying vigilant, we can protect ourselves from falling prey to these hidden dangers.
