Where Exactly Are Code Signing Machine Identities Used?

Back

Where Exactly Are Code Signing Machine Identities Used?

April 13, 2022 | Alexa Hernandez

Historically, code signing has been used to protect Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, and Android computing. In the modern enterprise, it is also being used to secure containers, Internet of Things (IoT) software updates, and even software installed on airplanes. In general, code signing is used any place a developer wants a user to be sure of the authenticity of a piece of software.

Indeed, code signing is what allows users to be sure they’re downloading a file from the right author or publisher instead of an attacker who wants to take your information and data. Essentially, code signing lets you know that the code hasn’t been changed by a cybercriminal, so you know it’s safe to install and run on your machine.

Unlike Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates, which have short expirations and are tied to specific web addresses, code signing certificates and private keys are like a passkey to your entire organization. This means that if unauthorized individuals get access to a private code signing key, they can sign anything and make it appear to come from your organization. Even if you were to revoke a code signing certificate, executables signed with it would still be trusted.

Recently, due to increased occurrences of software supply chain attacks by cybercriminals, code signing has been expanded to include the components that software developers use to build their software. These components include things like source code, third-party software libraries, open-source software, software build automation scripts, and even the tools that the developers use.

Where throughout your network are code signing machine identities being used? Read on to find out!

Securing software shipped externally

Signing software before shipping is important because it’s how customers know they can trust the software when they download it from the internet and install. They need to know that it comes from you and not some third-party masquerading as you. And they need to know that it has not been altered during its lifetime by a third party, such as having malware inserted.

A properly signed piece of software informs users whether the software they’ve downloaded and are trying to install can be trusted. It answers the question of where the software comes from and if it has been tampered with since it was signed. Figure 1-2 demonstrates this process.

Securing internal software infrastructure

Your organization relies on many outside software packages for daily operations. But how do you know you can trust all software that’s installed? You need a process for vetting software before users install it. Ideally, you’ll be able to whitelist software and only allow for that software to be installed on your computing resources. Code signing approved third-party software with your own private code signing certificate is a great way to protect it against intrusion or abuse.

In addition, IT teams and other groups may rely on shell scripts to automate critical business functions such as onboarding new employees, backing up critical databases, or performing network security functions. These scripts that developers use can also be considered software, and a malicious third party could modify them to breach sensitive data. Therefore, these types of automation scripts should also be protected by being signed.

The software your company uses, including the software that your employees install, could’ve had malware inserted along the way. Sure, your company has anti-malware scanners and antivirus software, but cybercriminals are still finding a way through. Code signing is proven to effectively deter this.

Securing software build and delivery processes

Some savvy cybercriminals are now software developers and have gotten smarter with their attacks. Being thwarted by code signing of final software executables, they are now targeting the software build infrastructure, inserting their malware before it’s assembled into a final software executable. This, along with the fact that most organizations now follow DevOps and digital transformation initiatives where business relies on more software, released faster than ever, makes most organizations vulnerable to these types of attacks.

If your software teams haven’t started securing their software build environments with code signing, act now. These types of attacks are becoming more prevalent. Work with your software teams and explain the dangers of not protecting their build automation scripts, source code, and other tools used to build their software.

What Are Some Code Signing Use Cases?

Firmware and embedded software
Computing devices contain software in many nooks and crannies. Chips and devices (such as a hard drive, mouse, or memory controller) contain embedded software known as firmware. Code signing authenticates that an update to that firmware comes from where it says it comes from and that it hasn’t been modified by a third party.

Software drivers and updates
Device drivers are privileged processes that run close to a computer’s system kernel, controlling and communicating with hardware components. Code signing machine identities can also be used to secure hardware drivers and operating systems. Signing software drivers protects them against cybercriminals embedding malware on them during the update process.

Application software
If you intend to distribute software or any type of file over the internet, code signing helps with convenient distribution, confirms the author, and guarantees that the application hasn’t been altered or corrupted since it was signed. Code signing provides peace of mind and builds trust with end-users, making them much more likely to install applications on their machines. It leads to more downloads, more users, and an improved reputation and brand image.

IoT devices
Today, IoT devices and the software that runs them are involved in almost all aspects of life. And software for these devices is updated frequently over the internet. Without code signing, you can’t trust and verify updates to IoT devices, and that would make unverified devices an easy entry point for attackers.

Containers
Using containers—such as Kubernetes or Docker—for deploying applications is now a common practice, and the list of container and container orchestration technologies grows regularly. However, the reality is that most containers aren’t particularly well protected. To better protect containers, you should sign the code that runs in the container as well as the container itself.

IT infrastructure, including scripting
When you digitally sign your scripts and other IT infrastructure with a trusted code signing certificate, you can protect them against inappropriate modification. It’s the best way to give people who use your scripts confidence that you authored them and that they haven’t been tampered with.

CI/CD pipelines
Developers use continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) solutions to deliver incremental software improvements and updates. These technologies allow developers to move software through the pipeline from source code to production ready releases. Intermediate artifacts such as source code, third-party libraries, open-source code, build scripts and recipes, and software tools should all be signed to ensure only vetted, authorized versions are being used.

Although the signing of code is usually automated in some fashion, the securing of code signing credentials, keys, and certificates is not—potentially leaving an organization vulnerable to a wide range of attacks.

What Happens If Code Doesn’t Get Signed?

If your organization doesn’t sign code, you can expose your business to significant risk of cybercriminal attacks that could harm your brand reputation, impact your sales, and create legal or regulatory liability.

If you aren’t properly securing your code signing processes, cybercriminals who infiltrate your network could sign your software with their own code signing certificates and use it for nefarious purposes. You’ll be increasing organizational risk if you’re not properly code signing all software in your organization, and you could inadvertently open your organization to malicious software running undetected in your environment. This is why a solution such as Venafi CodeSign Protect is so important for your organization.

Related Posts

Like this blog? We think you will love this.

Featured Blog

Study Shows Widespread Abuse of Code Signing Certificates

A study by Vi

Subscribe to our Weekly Blog Updates!

Join thousands of other security professionals

Get top blogs delivered to your inbox every week

See Popular Tags

{[{item.name}]} {[{item.uuid}]} tags

eBook

TLS Machine Identity Management for Dummies

White Paper

CIO Study: Certificate-Related Outages Continue to Plague Organizations

About the author

Alexa Hernandez

Alexa is the Web Marketing Specialist at Venafi.

Read Posts by Author

Sign up for Venafi Cloud

Venafi Cloud manages and protects certificates

End User License Agreement needs to be viewed and accepted

Already have an account? Login Here

Scroll to the bottom to accept

VENAFI CLOUD SERVICE

*** IMPORTANT ***

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY BEFORE CONTINUING WITH REGISTRATION AND/OR ACTIVATION OF THE VENAFI CLOUD SERVICE (“SERVICE”).

This is a legal agreement between the end user (“You”) and Venafi, Inc. ("Venafi" or “our”). BY ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT, EITHER BY CLICKING A BOX INDICATING YOUR ACCEPTANCE AND/OR ACTIVATING AND USING THE VENAFI CLOUD SERVICE FOR WHICH YOU HAVE REGISTERED, YOU AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU ARE ENTERING INTO THIS AGREEMENT ON BEHALF OF A COMPANY OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY, YOU REPRESENT THAT YOU HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO BIND SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, IN WHICH CASE THE TERMS "YOU" OR "YOUR" SHALL REFER TO SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE SUCH AUTHORITY, OR IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, YOU MUST NOT ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT AND MAY NOT USE THE SERVICE.

You shall not access the Service if You are Our competitor or if you are acting as a representative or agent of a competitor, except with Our prior written consent. In addition, You shall not access the Service for purposes of monitoring its availability, performance or functionality, or for any other benchmarking or competitive purposes, and you shall not perform security vulnerability assessments or penetration tests without the express written consent of Venafi.

This Agreement was last updated on April 12, 2017. It is effective between You and Venafi as of the date of Your accepting this Agreement.

The Venafi Cloud Service includes two separate services that are operated by Venafi as software as a service, each of which is separately licensed pursuant to the terms and conditions of this Agreement and each of which is considered a Service under this Agreement: the Venafi Cloud Risk Assessment Service or the Venafi Cloud for DevOps Service. Your right to use either Service is dependent on the Service for which You have registered with Venafi to use.

Definitions
1. “Your Data” means electronic data and information submitted by or for You to the Service or collected and processed by or for You using the Service.
License Grants and Restrictions
1. License Grant by Venafi to You. Venafi grants to You a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-assignable, limited license (the “License”) to access and use the Service during the applicable License Term set out in Section 2.2 below, in accordance with the instructions contained in the user documentation that accompanies the Service (“Documentation). Venafi hereby grants to You the right to use the Documentation solely in connection with the exercise of Your rights under this Agreement. Other than as explicitly set forth in this Agreement, no right to use, copy, display, or print the Documentation, in whole or in part, is granted. This license grant is limited to internal use by You. This License is conditioned upon Your compliance with all of Your obligations under this Agreement. Except for the express licenses granted in this Section, no other rights or licenses are granted by Venafi, expressly, by implication, by way of estoppel or otherwise. The Service and Documentation are licensed to Licensee and are not sold. Rights not granted in this Agreement are reserved by Venafi.
2. License Term.
  1. Venafi Cloud Risk Assessment Service. If you have registered to access and use the Venafi Cloud Risk Assessment Service, Your right to use the Venafi Cloud Risk Assessment Service is limited to ninety (90) days from the date You first register for the Service, unless otherwise extended on Your agreement with Venafi.
  2. Venafi Cloud for DevOps Service. If you have registered to access and use the Venafi Cloud for DevOps Service, Your right to use the Venafi Cloud for DevOps Service shall extend indefinitely and may be terminated by either You or Venafi at any time for any reason.
3. Restrictions on Use. The grant of rights stated in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, above, is subject to the following restrictions and limitations:
  1. If You have registered to access and use the Venafi Cloud for DevOps Service, You must use SSL/TLS certificates issued to you at no charge through the Service for development and testing purposes only, and You are strictly prohibited from using such SSL/TLS certificates in a production environment or in any production capacity. If you are registered with a public Certification Authority (“CA”) supported by the Service and have valid credentials issued by such CA with which you can subscribe to such CA’s SSL/TLS certificates on a fee bearing basis for use in production environments, You may request such certificates through the applicable interface present in the Service by using such credentials. In such instance, the fee bearing certificate(s) will be issued to You by the CA and any access to or use of such certificates by You will be subject to the terms and conditions set out by the CA. No fees will be paid to or processed by Venafi in this case. The use of DigiCert issued certificates shall be subject to the Certificate Services Agreement published by DigiCert at https://www.digicert.com/docs/agreements/Certificate-Services-Agreement.pdf, which terms are hereby incorporated by reference.
  2. You shall not use (or cause to be used) the Service for the benefit of any third party, including without limitation by rental, in the operation of an Applications Service Provider (ASP) service offering or as a service bureau, or any similar means.
  3. You shall not distribute access to the Service, in whole or in any part, to any third party or parties. You shall not permit sublicensing, leasing, or other transfer of the Service.
  4. You shall not (a) interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the Service or third-party data contained therein, (b) attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service or its related systems or networks, (c) permit direct or indirect access to or use of the Service in a way that circumvents a contractual usage limit, or (d) access the Service in order to build a competitive product or service.
4. License Grant by You. You grant to Venafi and its affiliates, as applicable, a worldwide, limited-term license to host, copy, transmit and display Your Data as necessary for Venafi to provide the Service in accordance with this Agreement. Subject to the limited licenses granted herein, Venafi acquires no right, title or interest from You or any of Your suppliers or licensors under this Agreement in or to Your Data.
Ownership
1. Venafi Materials. Venafi and/or its suppliers have and shall retain ownership of all right, title and interest in and to the Service and the Documentation and all intellectual property rights embodied in the Service and Documentation, including without limitation any patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets in the Service and any modifications and/or derivatives thereof, whether or not made at Licensee’s request, and all know-how, concepts, methods, programming tools, inventions, and computer source code developed by Venafi (collectively, “Venafi Materials”).
2. Limited Feedback License. You hereby grant to Venafi, at no charge, a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable license under Your intellectual property rights in and to suggestions, comments and other forms of feedback (“Feedback”) regarding the Service provided by or on behalf of You to Venafi, including Feedback regarding features, usability and use, and bug reports, to reproduce, perform, display, create derivative works of the Feedback and distribute such Feedback and/or derivative works in the Service. Feedback is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind and shall not include any of Your confidential information.
Disclaimer of Warranties
1. EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN THIS SECTION 4, THE SERVICE AND DOCUMENTATION ARE PROVIDED “AS-IS,” WITH “ALL FAULTS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR NONINFRINGEMENT WHETHER ARISING FROM COURSE OF DEALING, USAGE, TRADE PRACTICE OR ANY OTHER MANNER. VENAFI IS NOT OBLIGATED TO PROVIDE ANY UPDATES, UPGRADES OR TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR THE SERVICE. VENAFI DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY AND INDEMNIFICATION OBLIGATIONS FOR ANY HARM OR DAMAGES CAUSED BY ANY THIRD-PARTY HOSTING PROVIDERS. In no event does Venafi warrant that the Service is error free or that You will be able to operate the Service without problems or interruptions. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties and to the extent that is the case the above exclusion may not apply.
Limitation of Liability
1. IN NO EVENT WILL VENAFI OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOST REVENUE, PROFIT, OR DATA, OR FOR DIRECT, SPECIAL, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES HOWEVER CAUSED AND REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE EVEN IF VENAFI OR ITS SUPPLIERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability for incidental or consequential damages and to the extent that is the case the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to You.
Term and Termination
This License is effective until terminated as set forth herein or the License Term expires and is not otherwise renewed by the parties. Venafi may terminate this Agreement and/or the License at any time with or without written notice to You if You fail to comply with any term or condition of this Agreement or if Venafi ceases to make the Service available to end users. You may terminate this Agreement at any time on written notice to Venafi. Upon any termination or expiration of this Agreement or the License, You agree to cease all use of the Service if the License is not otherwise renewed or reinstated. Upon termination, Venafi may also enforce any rights provided by law. The provisions of this Agreement that protect the proprietary rights of Venafi will continue in force after termination.
Compliance With Laws
1. Violation of Laws. You shall not knowingly take any action or omit to take any action where the reasonably predictable result would be to cause Venafi to violate any applicable law, rule, regulation or policy and, to the extent not inconsistent therewith, any other applicable law, rule, regulation and policy.
Governing Law
This Agreement shall be governed by, and any arbitration hereunder shall apply, the laws of the State of Utah, excluding (a) its conflicts of laws principles; (b) the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods; (c) the 1974 Convention on the Limitation Period in the International Sale of Goods; and (d) the Protocol amending the 1974 Convention, done at Vienna April 11, 1980.
General
1. This Agreement is binding on You as well as Your employees, employers, contractors and agents, and on any permitted successors and assignees. Except if otherwise superseded in writing by a separately executed agreement, this Agreement is the entire agreement between You and Venafi with regard to the License granted hereunder, and You agree that Venafi will not have any liability for any statement or representation made by it, its agents or anyone else (whether innocently or negligently) upon which You relied in entering into this Agreement, unless such statement or representation was made fraudulently. This Agreement supersedes any other understandings or agreements, including, but not limited to, advertising, with respect to the Service. If any provision of this Agreement is deemed invalid or unenforceable by any country or government agency having jurisdiction, that particular provision will be deemed modified to the extent necessary to make the provision valid and enforceable and the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect. Should such modification be impractical or denied, You and Venafi shall thereafter each have the right to terminate this Agreement on immediate notice.
2. Survival. The parties agree that the rights and obligations set forth in the above-referenced Section 1 (Definitions), 3 (Ownership), 4 (Disclaimer of Warranties), 5 (Limitation of Liability), 6 (Term and Termination), 7 (Compliance with Laws), 8 (Governing Law), and 9 (General) shall survive the termination of this Agreement for any reason and enforcement thereof shall not be subject to any conditions precedent.
3. Assignment. This Agreement shall be binding upon and inure to the benefit of the parties’ respective successors and permitted assigns. You shall not assign this Agreement or any of Your rights or obligations hereunder without the prior written consent of Venafi and any such attempted assignment shall be void.

Where Exactly Are Code Signing Machine Identities Used?