CISO Guidance

1. Is this information credible?

• The information is credible, sourced from researchers at Edera and supported by industry experts like Robert Beggs from DigitalDefence.

2. How could this be relevant to my org’s assets, vendors, or processes?

• If your organization uses Rust, particularly the async-tar or tokio-tar libraries, this vulnerability could impact your software development processes and supply chain security.
• Vendors using these libraries could introduce risks into your environment.

3. What’s the actual technical risk?

• The risk is high, with a CVSS score of 8.1, allowing potential remote code execution through file overwriting attacks.
• It can lead to unauthorized access and compromise of systems extracting malicious TAR files.

4. What do we need to do to defend/detect/respond?

• Patch all affected libraries and forks immediately, prioritizing actively maintained versions like astral-tokio-tar.
• Conduct a thorough audit of code dependencies to identify and update vulnerable components.
• Implement sandboxing for TAR file processing and avoid extracting TAR files from untrusted sources.
• Monitor for exploit attempts and new vulnerabilities related to this issue.

5. What’s the potential business/regulatory exposure?

• Potential exposure includes data breaches, intellectual property theft, and compliance violations if sensitive data is compromised.
• Supply chain attacks could lead to significant reputational damage and regulatory scrutiny.

6. Does it reveal a bigger trend?

• This highlights ongoing risks associated with using unmaintained open source libraries and the need for rigorous dependency management.
• It underscores the importance of not solely relying on language security features, such as Rust's memory safety.

7. What actions or communications are needed now?

• Communicate the vulnerability and remediation steps to all relevant development and security teams.
• Engage with vendors to ensure they are aware and taking appropriate actions.
• Prepare a public statement if your organization is affected, detailing the steps taken to mitigate the risk.