How to stay safe from repo-jacking
Repo-jacking is a specific type of supply chain attack. This blog post explains what it is, what the risk is, and what you can do to stay safe.
Kevin Backhouse
I’m a security researcher on the GitHub Security Lab team. I try to help make open source software more secure by searching for vulnerabilities and working with maintainers to get them fixed.
Posts by this author
Cueing up a calculator: an introduction to exploit development on Linux
Using CVE-2023-43641 as an example, I’ll explain how to develop an exploit for a memory corruption vulnerability on Linux. The exploit has to bypass several mitigations to achieve code execution.
Coordinated Disclosure: 1-Click RCE on GNOME (CVE-2023-43641)
CVE-2023-43641 is a vulnerability in libcue, which can lead to code execution by downloading a file on GNOME.
Four tips to keep your GitHub Actions workflows secure
Researchers from Purdue and NCSU have found a large number of command injection vulnerabilities in the workflows of projects on GitHub. Follow these four tips to keep your GitHub Actions workflows secure.
How to fix a ReDoS
Code scanning detects ReDoS vulnerabilities automatically, but fixing them isn’t always easy. This blog post describes a 4-step strategy for fixing ReDoS bugs.
Blue-teaming for Exiv2: how to squash bugs by enrolling in OSS-Fuzz
OSS-Fuzz is Google’s awesome fuzzing service for open source projects. GitHub Security Lab’s @kevinbackhouse describes enrolling a project.
Blue-teaming for Exiv2: adding custom CodeQL queries to code scanning
The Exiv2 team tightened our security by enabling GitHub’s code scanning feature and adding custom queries tailored to the Exiv2 code base.
Blue-teaming for Exiv2: three rules of bug fixing for better OSS security
When you’re fixing a bug, especially a security vulnerability, you should add a regression test, fix the bug, and find & fix variants.
Blue-teaming for Exiv2: creating a security advisory process
This blog post is the first in a series about hardening the security of the Exiv2 project. My goal is to share tips that will help you harden the security of your own project.
Privilege escalation with polkit: How to get root on Linux with a seven-year-old bug
polkit is a system service installed by default on many Linux distributions. It’s used by systemd, so any Linux distribution that uses systemd also uses polkit.