harden-runner VS github-actions-goat

Fortunately there is a great free online tool that help you by doing all the hard work (it will open a pull-request and automatically fix issues).

If using GitHub Actions for CI/ CD, Harden Runner (https://github.com/step-security/harden-runner) can be used to audit and block DNS exfiltration. Outbound calls from CI are predictable (to source repo, artifact registry, etc.) and don't change often.

As part of writing tests for Harden Runner GitHub Action, which prevents such attacks, there was a need to write attack simulator for these attacks.

I am not too familiar with GitLab, to be honest, but: - Commit/PR linting (to be in tandem with semantic versioning) is implemented via third-party GitHub Actions (https://github.com/amannn/action-semantic-pull-request and https://github.com/wagoid/commitlint-github-action), these might be hard to transfer - Blocking egress to mitigate supply chain attacks is performed by step security’s Harden Runner (https://github.com/step-security/harden-runner), you may raise a question there about GitLab support - CodeQL support is GitHub only AFAIK (but you would have to verify it)

I've found StepSecurity's tooling helpful in getting my repos secured.

* https://app.stepsecurity.io/securerepo

I agree. There are projects such as https://github.com/ossf/package-analysis and https://github.com/step-security/harden-runner that do behavior analysis. Disclaimer: I’m maintainer of the second one.

So if you are concerned about this, I'd suggest looking at the following:

* OpenSSF Scorecard Action - https://github.com/ossf/scorecard#scorecards-github-action

* Step Security Harden Action - https://github.com/step-security/harden-runner

I realize that this means trusting these providers but they seem at least tacitly blessed by GitHub. https://docs.github.com/en/actions/security-guides/security-...

Few hours back several malicious packages were released on npm registry. This video shows how some of these packages are making outbound calls as part of the preinstall step when executed in a GitHub Actions workflow. DNS Exfiltration and network calls detected by Harden-Runner GitHub Action https://github.com/step-security/harden-runner

Hello HN, my name is Varun, and I am the co-founder of StepSecurity. Here is the backstory about Harden-Runner. We thoroughly researched past software supply chain security incidents. The devastating breaches of SolarWinds, Codecov, and others, have one thing in common – they attacked the CI/ CD pipeline or the build server.

These incidents made it clear that a purpose-built security agent was needed for CI/ CD. While there are numerous agents available for desktops and servers, such as from CrowdStrike and Lacework, none have been tailored specifically to address the unique risks present in CI/CD pipelines.

With the understanding that a specialized solution was needed to secure CI/CD environments, we developed Harden-Runner, an open-source solution tailored specifically for GitHub Actions hosted runners. It can be seamlessly integrated into your workflow by simply adding a step. The agent installation process is also lightning-fast, taking no more than 5 seconds to complete.

Harden-Runner's security agent is designed to closely monitor all aspects of the workflow run, including DNS, network, file, and process events. This allows for real-time identification of any potential security breaches. To prevent incidents like the Codecov breach, where exfiltration of credentials occurred, Harden-Runner allows you to set policies that restrict outbound traffic at both the DNS and network layers. Additionally, we are actively working on implementing further restrictions at the application layer, such as using HTTP verbs and paths, to provide an even more comprehensive security solution.

An excellent example of how Harden-Runner effectively blocks outbound traffic can be found in the following link: https://app.stepsecurity.io/github/microsoft/msquic/actions/.... As you can see, all traffic to unauthorized endpoints is highlighted in red, indicating that it has been blocked; this is because these endpoints are not included in the allowed list defined in the GitHub Actions workflow file, which can be viewed here: https://github.com/microsoft/msquic/blob/aaecb0fac5a3902dd24....

One of the key features of Harden-Runner's monitoring capabilities is its ability to detect any tampering or alteration of files during the build process, similar to the SolarWinds incident. To further enhance security and protect against potential malicious tools or attempts to disable the agent, Harden-Runner includes a disable-sudo mode. This mode effectively disables the use of 'sudo' on the hosted runner, providing an additional layer of protection

Harden-Runner has already been adopted by over 600 open-source repositories: https://github.com/step-security/harden-runner/network/depen.... To fully understand the capabilities of Harden-Runner and how it can protect against past supply chain attacks, please try out our attack simulator GitHub repository at https://github.com/step-security/attack-simulator. I would love to hear your feedback.

You can check out the attack simulator here: https://github.com/step-security/attack-simulator

A new tutorial has been added to https://github.com/step-security/supply-chain-goat/blob/main... to perform behavior analysis of dependencies.

For this a package was needed to simulate behavior of past hijacked packages. https://www.npmjs.com/package/@step-security/malware-simulat... makes an outbound call in a preinstall step.

You can think of the @step-security/malware-simulator package being like the EICAR file, which is used as a test file for anti-virus software.

Can be used to test if you can detect packages that make outbound calls, which is a common theme for hijacked packages.