Security News

GitHub revealed on Thursday that tens of open source NetBeans projects hosted on its platform were targeted by a piece of malware as part of what appears to be a supply chain attack. GitHub learned about the malware, which has been named Octopus Scanner, on March 9 from a security researcher who noticed that several repositories hosted on GitHub had been serving malware, likely without their owners' knowledge.

Hackers have broken into Microsoft's GitHub account and stolen 500 GB of data from the tech giant's own private repositories on the developer platform, according to published reports. In its latest hack, the group provided a screenshot to reporters at news site Hack Read that showed a list of private files from Microsoft's open-source developer repository to prove their infiltration of the company's private account.

Microsoft says it's investigating claims that its GitHub account has been hacked, and while some say the leaked files appear to be legitimate, it's unlikely that they contain any sensitive information. Data breach monitoring and prevention service Under the Breach reported on Thursday that a hacker claimed to have obtained 500 GB of source code from Microsoft's private GitHub repositories.

GitHub has made available two new security features for open and private repositories: code scanning and secret scanning. The code scanning feature, available for set up in every GitHub repository, is powered by CodeQL, a semantic code analysis engine that GitHub has made available last year.

Deque Systems, a leading software company specializing in digital accessibility, introduced axe Linter, an automated GitHub-based app which checks source code for common accessibility issues, automatically finding and suggesting fixes. Developers can supplement existing accessibility testing efforts by using axe Linter to catch accessibility problems early in the development process, significantly reducing future testing and remediation efforts.

The aim, said the code repo house, is to help developers suss out potential security vulnerabilities ahead of time, and to do so at a scale that will work for both small and large projects. The feature, based on the code-checking tools GitHub bought last year when it gobbled up UK-based Semmle, automatically graphs and scans code when a new push request is made and checks it for a number of common errors that can cause security vulnerabilities.

GitHub on Wednesday announced two new security features designed to help developers identify vulnerabilities and potential secrets in their code. These new security features, code scanning and secret scanning, are currently in beta.

GitHub has released technical information on six vulnerabilities identified by one of its security researchers in the WebAudio component of Chrome. The researcher started looking for Chrome vulnerabilities while he was working for Semmle, which GitHub acquired last year for its code analysis platform.

GitHub has warned users that they may be targeted in a fairly sophisticated phishing campaign that the company has dubbed "Sawfish." GitHub has pointed out that this phishing campaign has several noteworthy aspects.

GitHub users beware: online criminals have launched a phishing campaign to try and gain access to your accounts. They could create a GitHub personal access token, which allows the user to access their GitHub account using the Security Assertion Markup Language.