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Sebastian Vaduva
Sebastian Vaduva

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Sandworm.JS: sandboxing & malware detection for npm packages

Sandworm.JS is a sandboxing & malware detection tool for npm packages

Rather than relying on CVE advisories, Sandworm watches lower-level APIs like the Node VM and browser APIs like DOM manipulation, fetch, etc., and throws when a package unexpectedly accesses these APIs.

While this won't protect against all classes of vulnerabilities, it assures that your project is safe from hand-crafted, zero-day vulnerabilities that leave your data open to attack until a CVE is issued and a fix is published.
Most tools in this space currently use static analysis to scan a package's source and infer potential threats by looking at code patterns, invoked methods, or loaded modules.

However, it's generally simple to trick such analysis tools using various obfuscation techniques. Static analysis is, therefore, not a definitive security solution and should be used in tandem with dynamic tools like Sandworm.

Sandworm does dynamic analysis in the runtime - it knows about what happens when it happens:
It can't let you know about possible vulnerabilities before it sees the code run;
It also can't capture information about "dormant" code that doesn't get executed;

No obfuscation or workaround can fool our interceptors, though: as soon as any code segment attempts to invoke a sensitive method, Sandworm will capture that call and be able to allow or deny access.

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