Trusted Development Profile for Software Supply Chain Integrity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current authentication mechanisms in software supply chains do not provide sufficient protection against attacks on the development environment, allowing malicious source code to be injected into source code repositories.
Innovation Solution
A trusted development profile is created and verified, comprising hardware, software, and environment profiles, which is used to authenticate the development environment and detect unauthorized access or malicious source code submissions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If current authentication mechanisms (credentials) are used, then ease of operation is maintained, but reliability of software supply chain is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The authentication system is segmented into multiple independent components: hardware profile (device identifiers, security features), software profile (development environment, tools, configurations), and environment profile (location, time, network characteristics). Each component is verified separately by the source code repository, allowing comprehensive security checks while maintaining modular operation that doesn't significantly increase user burden.
2Reliability
If comprehensive development environment verification is implemented, then reliability of source code acceptance is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by collecting and verifying hardware, software, and environment profile data before the actual source code submission process. The source code repository obtains and validates the development profile in advance, establishing trust credentials beforehand. This preliminary verification framework is set up once and then reused for multiple source code submissions, reducing per-operation complexity while maintaining high reliability.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If trusted development profile verification is performed, then harmful factors (malicious code injection) are reduced, but loss of time in authentication process increases
Solution Approach 1:
The development profile verification is performed as a preliminary action before source code submission. The source code repository obtains and validates the hardware, software, and environment profiles in advance, establishing trusted credentials. Once verified, these credentials can be cached or reused for subsequent submissions from the same development environment, reducing authentication time for future operations while maintaining strong security against malicious code injection.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method of authenticating a development environment include receiving, by one or more processors associated with a source code repository, a development profile from a development environment. Sending the development profile to a trusted profile verifier to be registered as a trusted development profile. Receiving a pending source file commit request, where the pending source file commit request includes source code files and a current development profile. Facilitating verification of whether the current development profile matches the trusted development profile. When it is verified that the current development profile matches the trusted development profile, accepting the source code files.