Security scanners can be turned into a foothold for supply chain attacks

New research shows that application security scanners embedded in the software pipeline can themselves be attacked, because analyzing a repository is not always a read-only action. Many scanners execute code or process files in ways that can be forced to run attacker content when it is handled without isolation. For example, a tool that scans cloud configuration files against a folder of custom rules can be fed a rule that is actually a malicious program, which the scanner runs when it loads it. Since scanners often hold broad access to source, secrets, and build systems, a compromised one is a strong pivot point into the wider environment.

Check

Review how your code and configuration scanners handle untrusted repository content, and check whether they execute rules, plugins, or files without sandboxing and multi-tenant isolation.

Affected

Teams whose security scanners process untrusted repository content without isolation; an attacker controlling a scanned repo can plant content that runs code inside the scanner, which often holds broad access to secrets.

Fix

Run scanners in isolated, least-privilege sandboxes, treat all scanned content as untrusted input, enforce multi-tenancy separation, and limit the source, secrets, and build access that scanning environments hold.