Detailed Software Supply Chain Uses Cases for SCITT
draft-ietf-scitt-software-use-cases-03
| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (scitt WG) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Henk Birkholz , Yogesh Deshpande , Dick Brooks (REA) , Bob Martin , Brian Knight | ||
| Last updated | 2024-04-18 | ||
| Replaces | draft-birkholz-scitt-software-use-cases | ||
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draft-ietf-scitt-software-use-cases-03
Network Working Group H. Birkholz
Internet-Draft Fraunhofer SIT
Intended status: Informational Y. Deshpande
Expires: 20 October 2024 ARM
D. Brooks
REA
R. Martin
MITRE
B. Knight
Microsoft
18 April 2024
Detailed Software Supply Chain Uses Cases for SCITT
draft-ietf-scitt-software-use-cases-03
Abstract
This document includes a collection of representative Software Supply
Chain Use Cases. These use cases aim to identify software supply
chain problems that the industry faces today and act as a guideline
for developing a comprehensive security architecture and solutions
for these scenarios.
About This Document
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
Status information for this document may be found at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-scitt-software-use-
cases/.
Discussion of this document takes place on the SCITT Working Group
mailing list (mailto:scitt@ietf.org), which is archived at
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https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/scitt/.
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
https://github.com/ietf-wg-scitt/draft-ietf-scitt-software-use-cases.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Generic Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Software Supply Chain Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2. Verification That Signing Certificate Is Authorized by
Supplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Multi Stakeholder Evaluation of a Released Software
Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.4. Security Analysis of a Software Product . . . . . . . . . 6
2.5. Promotion of a Software Component by Multiple Entities . 8
2.6. Post-Boot Firmware Provenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.7. Auditing of Software Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.8. Authentic Software Components in Air-Gapped
Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.9. Firmware Delivery to Large Set of Devices . . . . . . . . 11
2.10. Software Integrator Assembling a Software Product for a
Smart Car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.11. Identify Statements and Updates to Specific Versions of
Released Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
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3.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1. Introduction
Modern software applications are an intricate mix of first-party and
third-party code, development practices and tools, deployment methods
and infrastructure, and interfaces and protocols. The software
supply chain comprises all elements associated with a system's
design, development, build, integration, deployment, and maintenance
throughout its entire lifecycle. The complexity of software, coupled
with a lack of lifecycle visibility, increases the risks associated
with system attack surface and the number of cyber threats capable of
harmful impacts, such as exfiltration of data, disruption of
operations, and loss of reputation, intellectual property, and
financial assets. There is a need for an architecture that will
allow consumers to know that suppliers maintained appropriate
security practices without requiring access to proprietary
intellectual property. SCITT-enabled products assist in managing
compliance with often distinct, but overlapping and interconnected,
legal, regulatory, and technical requirements, assessing risks, and
detecting supply chain attacks across the software lifecycle while
prioritizing data privacy.
1.1. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
2. Generic Problem Statement
Supply chain security is a prerequisite to protecting consumers and
minimizing economic, public health, and safety threats. Supply chain
security has historically focused on risk management practices to
safeguard logistics, meet compliance regulations, forecast demand,
and optimize inventory. While these elements are foundational to a
healthy supply chain, an integrated cyber security-based perspective
of the software supply chains remains broadly undefined. Recently,
the global community has experienced numerous supply chain attacks
targeting weaknesses in software supply chains. As illustrated in
Figure 1, a software supply chain attack may leverage one or more
lifecycle stages and directly or indirectly target the component.
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Dependencies Malicious 3rd-party package or version
|
|
+-----+-----+
| |
| Code | Compromise source control
| |
+-----+-----+
|
+-----+-----+
| | Malicious plug-ins;
| Commit | Malicious commit
| |
+-----+-----+
|
+-----+-----+
| | Modify build tasks or build environment;
| Build | Poison build agent/compiler;
| | Tamper with build cache
+-----+-----+
|
+-----+-----+
| | Compromise test tools;
| Test | Falsification of test results
| |
+-----+-----+
|
+-----+-----+
| | Use bad package;
| Package | Compromise package repository
| |
+-----+-----+
|
+-----+-----+
| | Modify release tasks;
| Release | Modify build drop prior to release
| |
+-----+-----+
|
+-----+-----+
| |
| Deploy | Tamper with versioning and update process
| |
+-----------+
Figure 1: Example Lifecycle Threats
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DevSecOps often depends on third-party and open-source software.
These dependencies can be quite complex throughout the supply chain
and render the checking of lifecycle compliance difficult. There is
a need for manageable auditability and accountability of digital
products. Typically, the range of types of statements about digital
products (and their dependencies) is vast, heterogeneous, and can
differ between community policy requirements. Taking the type and
structure of all statements about digital and products into account
might not be possible. Examples of statements may include commit
signatures, build environment and parameters, software bill of
materials, static and dynamic application security testing results,
fuzz testing results, release approvals, deployment records,
vulnerability scan results, and patch logs. In consequence, instead
of trying to understand and describe the detailed syntax and
semantics of every type of statement about digital products, the
SCITT architecture focuses on ensuring statement authenticity,
visibility/transparency, and intends to provide scalable
accessibility. The following use cases illustrate the scope of SCITT
and elaborate on the generic problem statement above.
2.1. Software Supply Chain Use Cases
2.2. Verification That Signing Certificate Is Authorized by Supplier
Consumers wish to verify the authenticity and integrity of software
they use before installation. To do this today, they rely on the
digital signature of the software. This can be misleading, however,
as there is no guarantee that the certificate used to sign the
software is authorized by the Supplier for signing. For example, a
malicious actor may obtain a signing certificate from a reputable
organization and use that certificate to sign malicious software.
The consumer, believing the software originated from the reputable
organization, would then install malicious software.
A consumer of software wants to:
* verify the authenticity and integrity of software they use before
installation.
There is no standardized way to:
* enable the consumer to verify that software originated from a
'duly authorized signing party' on behalf of the supplier, and is
still valid.
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2.3. Multi Stakeholder Evaluation of a Released Software Product
In the IT industry, it is a common practice that once a software
product is released, it is evaluated on various aspects. For
example, an auditing company, a code review company or a government
body will examine the software product and issue authoritative
reports about the product. The end users (consumers or distribution
entities) use these report to make an accurate assessment as to
whether the software product is deemed fit to use.
There are multiple such authoritative bodies that make such
assessments. There is no assurance that all the bodies may be aware
of statements from other authoritative entities or actively
acknowledge them. Discovery of all sources of such reports and/or
identities of the authoritative bodies adds a significant cost to the
end user or consumer of the product.
A consumer of released software product wants to:
* offload the burden of identifying all relevant authoritative
entities to an entity who does it on their behalf
* offload the burden to filter from and select all statements that
are applicable to a particular version of a multi release software
product, to an entity who does this on their behalf
* make an informed decisions on which authoritative entities to
believe
There is no standardized way to:
* aggregate large numbers of related statements in one place and
discover them
* referencing other statements via a statement
* identifying or discover all (or at least a critical mass) of
relevant authoritative entities
2.4. Security Analysis of a Software Product
This use case is a specialization of the use case above.
A released software product is often accompanied by a set of
complementary statements about it's security compliance. This gives
enough confidence to both producers and consumers that the released
software has a good security standard and is suitable to use.
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Subsequently, multiple security researchers often run sophisticated
security analysis tools on the same product. The intention is to
identify any security weaknesses or vulnerabilities in the package.
Initially, a particular analysis can identify a simple weakness in a
software component. Over a period of time, a statement from a third-
party illustrates that the weakness is exposed in a way that
represents an exploitable vulnerability. The producer of the
software product provides a statement that confirms the linking of
software component vulnerability with the software product and also
issues an advisory statement on how to mitigate the vulnerability.
At first, the producer provides an updated software product that
still uses the vulnerable software component but shields the issue in
a fashion that inhibits exploitation. Later, a second update of the
software product includes a security patch to the affected software
component from the software producer. Finally, a third update
includes a new release (updated version) of the formerly insecure
software component. For this release, both the software product and
the affected software component are deemed secure by the producer and
consumers.
A consumer of a released software wants to:
* know where to get these security statements from producers and
third-parties related to the software product in a timely and
unambiguous fashion
* attribute them to an authoritative issuer
* associate the statements in a meaningful manner via a set of well-
known semantic relationships
* consistently, efficiently, and homogeneously check their
authenticity
There is no standardized way to:
* know the various sources of statements
* express the provenance and historicity of statements
* relate and link various heterogeneous statements in a simple
fashion
* check that the statement comes from a source with authority to
issue that statement
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2.5. Promotion of a Software Component by Multiple Entities
A software component (e.g., a library) released by a certain original
producer is becoming popular. The released software component is
accompanied by a statement of authenticity (e.g., a detached
signature). Over time, due to its enhanced applicability to various
products, there has been an increasing amount of multiple providers
of the same software component version on the internet.
Some providers include this particular software component as part of
their release package bundle and provide the package with proof of
authenticity using their own issuer authority. Some packages include
the original statement of authenticity, and some do not. Over time,
some providers no longer offer the exact same software component
source code but pre-compiled software component binaries. Some
sources do not provide the exact same software component, but include
patches and fixes produced by third-parties, as these emerge faster
than solutions from the original producer. Due to complex
distribution and promotion lifecycle scenarios, the original software
component takes myriad forms.
A consumer of a released software wants to:
* understand if a particular provider is actually the original
provider or a promoter
* know if and how the source, or resulting binary, of a promoted
software component differs from the original software component
* check the provenance and history of a software component's source
back to its origin
* assess whether to trust a promoter or not
There is no standardized way to:
* reliably discern if a provider is the original producer or is a
trustworthy promoter or is an illegitimate provider
* track the provenance path from an original producer to a
particular provider
* check the trustworthiness of a provider
* check the integrity of modifications or transformations applied by
a provider
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2.6. Post-Boot Firmware Provenance
In contrast to operating systems or user space software components of
a large and complex systems, firmware components are often already
executed during boot-cycles before there is an opportunity to
authenticate them.
Authentication takes place, for example, by validating a signed
artifact against a Reference Integrity Manifest (RIM), such as IETF's
Concise Reference Integrity Manifest, TCG Reference Integrity
Manifest (RIM) Information Model, or another specification as
applicable. Corresponding procedures are often called authenticated,
measured, or secure boot. The output of these high assurance boot
procedures is often used as input to more complex verifications known
as remote attestation procedures.
If measurements before execution are not possible, static after-the-
fact analysis is required, typically by examining artifacts. When
best practices are followed, measurements (e.g., a hash or digests)
are stored in a protected or shielded environment (e.g., TEEs or
TPMs). After finishing a boot sequence, these measurements about
foundational firmware are retrieved after-the-fact from shielded
locations and must be compared to reference values that are part of
RIMs. A verifying system appraising the integrity of a boot sequence
must identify, locate, retrieve, and authenticate corresponding RIMs.
A consumer of published software wants to:
* easily identify sources for RIMs
* select appropriate RIMs and download them for the appraisal of
measurements
* assure the authenticity, applicability, and freshness of RIMs over
time
There is no standardized way to:
* identify, locate, retrieve and authenticate RIMs in a uniform
fashion
* uniquely identify and filter multiple potential available RIMs
(e.g., by age, source, signing authority, etc.)
* store RIMs in a secure fashion that enables their usage in
appraisal procedures years after they were created
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2.7. Auditing of Software Products
An organization has established procurement requirements and
compliance policies for software use. In order to allow the
acquisition and deployment of software in certain security domains of
the organization, a check of software quality and characteristics
must succeed. Compliance and requirement checking includes audits of
the results of organizational procedures and technical procedures,
which can originate from checks conducted by the organization itself
or checks conducted by trusted third parties. Consequently,
consumers of statements about released software can be auditors.
Examples of procedure results important to audits include:
* available fresh and applicable code reviews
* certification documents (e.g., FIPS or Common Criteria)
* virus scans
* vulnerability disclosure reports (fixed or not fixed)
* security impact or applicability justification statements
Relevant documents (such as compliance, requirements or procedure
results) originate from various sources and include a wide range of
representations and formats.
A producer of released software wants to:
* match disclosures related to released software to the needs of an
auditor
* provide documents that enable efficient audit procedures
* minimize the cost of audits
There is no standardized way to:
* discover and associate relevant documents, data, and validation
results required for various types of audits
* assert the authenticity and provenance of documents relevant to
audits in a deterministic and uniform fashion
* check the validity of identity statements about relevant documents
after the fact (when they were made) in a consistent, long-term
fashion
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* allow for more than one level of disclosure of audit procedures
(potentially depending on criticality)
2.8. Authentic Software Components in Air-Gapped Infrastructure
Some software is deployed on systems not connected to the Internet.
Authenticity checks for off-line systems can occur at time of
deployment of released software. Off-line systems require
appropriate configuration and maintenance to be able to conduct
useful authenticity checks. If the off-line systems in operation are
part of constrained node environments, they do not possess the
capabilities to process and evaluate all the authenticity proofs that
come with the released software.
A consumer of released software wants:
* a proof of authenticity that can be checked by an off-line system
for vast periods of time after system deployment
* a proof of authenticity to be small and as uniform as possible to
allow for application in constrained node environments
* a simple and low cost way to update the configuration of a system
component in charge of validity or authenticity checking
There is no standardized way to:
* provide an authenticity proof that can be checked by off-line
systems in a simple and uniform fashion
* enable high performance, and constrained systems to conduct
authenticity checks
* verify the authenticity and integrity of software in a fashion
that scales
2.9. Firmware Delivery to Large Set of Devices
Firmware is a critical component of constrained IoT devices and
general purpose computers. Firmware is often the bedrock on which
the security story of a device is built. For example, personal
health monitoring devices (eHealth devices) are generally battery
driven and offer health telemetry monitoring, such as temperature,
blood pressure, and pulse rate. These devices typically connect to
the Internet through an intermediary base station using wireless
technologies. Through this connection, the telemetry data and
analytics are transferred, and the device receives firmware updates
published by vendors. During initialization, general purpose
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computers can also have resource constraints like that of constrained
IoT devices. Verification of hardened configuration of the
computer's chipset for ongoing telemetry is increasingly important.
After initialization, even if not constrained similarly to IoT
devices, the computer's operating system can facilitate telemetry
about telemetry settings and measure differences at scale. The
public network, open distribution system, and firmware update process
create several security challenges.
Consumers and other interested parties of a firmware update ecosystem
want to:
* know that the received firmware for system update is not faulty or
malicious
* know if the signing identity used to assert the authenticity of
the firmware is somehow used to sign unintended updates
* ascertain that the released firmware is not subverted or
compromised due to an insider risk - be it malicious or otherwise
* confirm that the publishers knows if their deliverable has been
compromised. For example, can they trust their key protection or
audit logging?
* know how the update client on an instance of a health monitoring
system discerns a general update from one specially crafted for
just a small subset of a fleet of devices
* know if the firmware has effectively maintained or changed
applicable hardware settings after installation
There is no standardized way to:
* provide an update framework that allows validation of authenticity
of firmware revisions (in addition to existing approaches, such as
[RFC9019], [RFC9124], or [TUF])
* to verify that the firmware update seen by a single device, is
indeed the same as seen by all the devices
* reliably discern an update that has been signed by the appropriate
and intended signing identity
* make an informed judgement on all available information about
firmware at the install time.
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* implement an update framework with the ability to measure hardware
configuration
2.10. Software Integrator Assembling a Software Product for a Smart Car
Software Integration is a complex activity. This typically involves
getting various software components from multiple suppliers,
producing an integrated package deployed as part of device assembly.
For example, car manufacturers source integrated software for their
autonomous vehicles from third parties that integrates software
components from various sources. Integration complexity creates a
higher risk of security vulnerabilities to the delivered software.
Consumers of integrated software want:
* all components presents in a software product listed
* the ability to identify and retrieve all components from a secure
and tamper-proof location
* to receive an alert when a vulnerability scan detects a known
security issue on a running software component
* verifiable proofs on build process and build environment with all
supplier tiers to ensure end to end build quality and security
There is no standardized way to:
* provide a tiered and transparent framework that allows for
verification of integrity and authenticity of the integrated
software at both component and product level before installation
* notify software integrators of vulnerabilities identified during
security scans of running software
* provide valid annotations on build integrity to ensure conformance
2.11. Identify Statements and Updates to Specific Versions of Released
Software
Software producers often have multiple and concurrent supported
versions of a product. The versions may represent major feature or
compatibility differentiating releases (1.0, 2.0), or implementations
for different Operating System Platforms and their respective
Instruction Set Architectures (AMD, ARM, x86, x64 for Linux, Mac, and
Windows).
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For each release, the software producer must be capable of providing
statements, unique to that version. Producers may provide patches to
upgrade specific versions and not others. Consumers need to know
which updates are compatible with their environment. Third parties
that provide statements of quality need to know how to differentiate
supported version bands, avoiding the recommendation to upgrade to an
incompatible version.
As versions lose recency and freshness and vulnerabilities are
discovered, consumers need to know the latest version of a particular
product. Software producers implement versioned updates, however
there are no standards for consumers and third parties to apply
across software producers.
Consumers of related software components want to:
* discover information based on certain aspects of software, such as
version, platform architecture, or associated vulnerabilities
* assess the applicability of patches when planning update campaigns
There is no standardized way to:
* associate vulnerability information, statements of quality,
statements of support and end of life (EOL) with a specific
version of a product
* identify a patched version, specific to their Operating System and
Platform
* differentiate major and minor version upgrades
* provide concurrent versioned updates
3. References
3.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC2119>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC8174>.
3.2. Informative References
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[RFC9019] Moran, B., Tschofenig, H., Brown, D., and M. Meriac, "A
Firmware Update Architecture for Internet of Things",
RFC 9019, DOI 10.17487/RFC9019, April 2021,
<https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC9019>.
[RFC9124] Moran, B., Tschofenig, H., and H. Birkholz, "A Manifest
Information Model for Firmware Updates in Internet of
Things (IoT) Devices", RFC 9124, DOI 10.17487/RFC9124,
January 2022, <https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC9124>.
[TUF] "The Update Framework Overview", n.d.,
<https://theupdateframework.io/overview/>.
Authors' Addresses
Henk Birkholz
Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology
Rheinstrasse 75
64295 Darmstadt
Germany
Email: henk.birkholz@sit.fraunhofer.de
Yogesh Deshpande
ARM
Email: yogesh.deshpande@arm.com
Dick Brooks
REA
Email: dick@reliableenergyanalytics.com
Robert Martin
MITRE
Email: ramartin@mitre.org
Brian Knight
Microsoft
Email: brianknight@microsoft.com
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