COMMON ATTACK PATTERN ENUMERATION AND CLASSIFICATIONLive MITRE record

CAPEC-670

Software Development Tools Maliciously Altered

An adversary with the ability to alter tools used in a development environment causes software to be developed with maliciously modified tools. Such tools include requirements management and database tools, software design tools, configuration management tools, compilers, system build tools, and software performance testing and load testing tools. The adversary then carries out malicious acts once the software is deployed including malware infection of other systems to support further compromises.

Abstraction

Detailed

Typical severity

High

Likelihood of attack

Low

Understand the attack

What is this attack pattern?

An adversary with the ability to alter tools used in a development environment causes software to be developed with maliciously modified tools. Such tools include requirements management and database tools, software design tools, configuration management tools, compilers, system build tools, and software performance testing and load testing tools. The adversary then carries out malicious acts once the software is deployed including malware infection of other systems to support further compromises.

Requirements

What does the attack require?

Prerequisites

  • An adversary would need to have access to a targeted developer’s development environment and in particular to tools used to design, create, test and manage software, where the adversary could ensure malicious code is included in software packages built through alteration or substitution of tools in the environment used in the development of software.

Skills required

  • High: Ability to leverage common delivery mechanisms (e.g., email attachments, removable media) to infiltrate a development environment to gain access to software development tools for the purpose of malware insertion into an existing tool or replacement of an existing tool with a maliciously altered copy.

Resources required

Not stated in the MITRE record.

Impact

What does a successful attack lead to?

Execute Unauthorized Commands

Affected scopes: Integrity

Gain Privileges

Affected scopes: Access Control

Modify DataRead Data

Affected scopes: Confidentiality

Defence

How is it prevented and mitigated?

1
Have a security concept of operations (CONOPS) for the development environment that includes: Maintaining strict security administration and configuration management of requirements management and database tools, software design tools, configuration management tools, compilers, system build tools, and software performance testing and load testing tools.
2
Avoid giving elevated privileges to developers.

Real world

MITRE example instances

Example instance 1Detail
An adversary with access to software build tools inside an Integrated Development Environment IDE alters a script used for downloading dependencies from a dependent code repository where the script has been changed to include malicious code implanted in the repository by the adversary.
CAPEC-670: Software Development Tools Maliciously Altered — DayBreach Saldırı Sözlüğü · DayBreach