Andrei spent the previous year as a technical leader of a startup automating cybersecurity solutions and as a security engineer in the Romanian Army. After determining that the startup idea was unfeasible, he left the public sector and accepted a position at Canonical to secure Ubuntu and its open-source components. He currently focuses on software security, with his most recent important contribution being an open source cyber reasoning system capable of discovering, exploiting, and repairing vulnerabilities in ELF executables. In addition, he occasionally analyses cybersecurity papers in a section of the Ubuntu Security Podcast.

The Open Source Fortress: Finding Vulnerabilities in Your Codebase Using Open Source Tools

Regardless of where it is hosted, a codebase could end up in the hands of malicious actors. Aside from the open source scenario, attackers may utilize sophisticated techniques to access and download it. Okta’s 2022 breach, in which the source code of the identity and access management platform was obtained from GitHub, is an example. With this in mind, developers are advised to take a defensive posture, namely to uncover as many flaws in their code as possible before releasing it to the public. 

This presentation will provide both theoretical and practical information about detecting vulnerabilities in codebases. The host will explain how each technique works, what open source tools are available, and then provide real examples. The latter implies the discovery of vulnerabilities in a custom, purposefully vulnerable codebase written in C and Python. Static techniques such as linting, symbolic execution, and code querying will be discussed, as will dynamic techniques such as fuzzing.