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SQ14101

Detected Windows executable files packed with runtime packers that reduce or nullify the effects of vulnerability mitigation protections.

priorityCI/CD statusseverityeffortRL levelRL assessment
failhighmedium5hardening: fail
Reason: critical code packing issues

About the issue​

Windows executable files can be converted to self-extracting applications that rebuild their own code during execution. Algorithms that process the executable format, and act as the operating system loader, are typically written in the low-level assembly code. As re-implementations of core system functionalities, they are often an imperfect simulation of complex application loading procedures. Most runtime packers are incompatible with the baseline vulnerability mitigation options that operating systems provide. Therefore, it's a common practice that various security features get silently disabled during this type of software packing. Packed applications typically continue to run without visible software defects, and they can even pass rigorous quality assurance testing. However, such tests rarely evaluate vulnerability mitigation effectiveness.

How to resolve the issue​

  • When this issue is reported, it is common to find additional compatibility issues that the runtime packing has introduced. You should deprecate the use of runtime packers or enforce digital rights management via less intrusive ways that still preserve compatibility with vulnerability mitigation options.

Incidence statistics​

ReversingLabs periodically collects and analyzes the contents of popular software package repositories for threat research purposes.

For every repository, the chart shows the percentage of projects that triggered the software assurance policy. In other words, it shows how many projects were found to have the specific issue described on this page.

The percentages are calculated from the total amount of packages analyzed:

  • RubyGems: 174K
  • Nuget: 189K
  • PyPi: 403K
  • NPM: 2.1M