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SQ18112

Detected Linux executable files that were compiled without any dynamic symbol hijacking protections.

priorityCI/CD statusseverityeffortSAFE levelSAFE assessment
passmediumlowNonehardening: warning
Reason: execution hijacking concerns

About the issue​

On Linux, external symbols are resolved via the procedure linkage table (PLT) and the global offset table (GOT). The global offset table is split into two tables - one for external data, and one for external functions. Without any protection, both are writable at runtime and thus leave the executable vulnerable to data overwrite attacks and pointer hijacking. Data overwrite attacks can be mitigated by using partial read-only relocations, while pointer hijacking can be mitigated with full read-only relocations. Both approaches have some drawbacks. Partial read-only relocations don't provide full protection, because the external function GOT remains writable. Full read-only relocations require that all external function symbols are resolved at load-time instead of during execution. This may increase loading time for large programs.

How to resolve the issue​

  • In most cases, it's recommended to use full read-only relocations (in GCC: -Wl,-z,relro,-z,now).
  • If the executable load-time is an issue, you should use partial read-only relocations.

Incidence statistics​

ReversingLabs periodically collects and analyzes the contents of popular software package repositories for threat research purposes. Analysis results are used to calculate incidence statistics for issues (policy violations) that Spectra Assure can detect in software packages.

This section is updated when new data becomes available.

Total amount of packages analyzed

  • RubyGems: 183K
  • Nuget: 644K
  • PyPi: 628K
  • NPM: 3.72M

Total detections per repository

For every repository, the chart shows the number of packages that triggered the software assurance policy. In other words, it shows how many packages in each package repository were found to have the specific issue described on this page. This information helps you understand how common the issue is across different software communities.

If a repository is absent from the chart, that means none of the packages in that repository triggered this policy during analysis, or the policy was not used during analysis.

Distribution of total detections by project popularity

For every repository, the chart shows how many of the total detections belong to the Top 100 (1-100), Top 1000 (101-1000) and Top 10 000 (1001-10 000) most downloaded projects. This information helps you understand the impact of the issue within each community, making it clearer when the issue affects the most popular projects.

If the chart shows zero values for all of the top project groups, that means all detections were in unranked projects (lower than 10 000 on the list of most downloaded projects).