September 17, 2024 at 11:33AM
Google has patched a vulnerability in its Google Cloud Platform (GCP) that could have led to supply chain attacks on customer cloud servers. Researchers discovered the flaw, dubbed “CloudImposer,” in GCP’s Cloud Composer service, posing a dependency confusion risk. Google addressed the issue by fixing the vulnerable script and updating its documentation. GCP customers are advised to analyze their package installation processes to prevent this type of attack.
Summary:
– Google Cloud Platform (GCP) had a vulnerability dubbed “CloudImposer,” which could have been exploited by attackers to execute a supply chain attack on GCP services such as Cloud Composer, App Engine, and Cloud Function.
– The vulnerability involved a technique called dependency confusion, where an attacker creates a malicious package with the same name as a legitimate internal package and publishes it to a public repository. When the system mistakenly pulls the malicious package instead of the intended one, the attacker gains unauthorized access.
– Tenable researchers found that Google’s documentation and implementation advice introduced the possibility of dependency confusion in GCP deployments. Google subsequently patched the vulnerable script in Google Cloud Composer and fixed its documentation.
– Google also adopted Tenable’s suggestion to recommend GCP customers to use the GCP Artifact Registry’s virtual repository to safely control the Python package manager search order.
– GCP customers are advised to analyze their environments for their package installation process and to prevent breaches by avoiding the use of the –extra-index-url argument in Python.
– Google has confirmed that there is no evidence that the CloudImposer vulnerability was exploited, and they have taken measures to mitigate the risks associated with cloud supply chain attacks.
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