Reports have surfaced regarding a potential takeover attempt against the OpenJS Foundation, reminiscent of a recent incident aimed at the XZ Utils open-source project.
The joint alert from the OpenJS Foundation and Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) highlighted a series of suspicious emails received by the OpenJS Foundation Cross Project Council. These emails, signed by different names and linked to GitHub, urged the organization to address critical vulnerabilities in one of its popular JavaScript projects without providing specific details.
Executive Director Robin Bender Ginn and General Manager Omkhar Arasaratnam revealed that the emails also requested OpenJS to appoint the senders as new maintainers of the project, despite their lack of prior involvement. Similar tactics were observed targeting two other prominent JavaScript projects not associated with OpenJS.
Fortunately, the authors of these emails did not gain privileged access to the OpenJS-hosted project.
The incident mirrors the social engineering attack against the lone maintainer of XZ Utils, where fictitious personas pressured the maintainer to grant them co-maintainer status. This has raised concerns that the attempt on XZ Utils may be part of a broader campaign to compromise the security of multiple projects, although the specific JavaScript projects involved were not disclosed.
The sophistication of the campaign is evident in the creation of a credible yet fictitious persona to insert a backdoor into XZ Utils, showcasing the risks facing volunteer-run open-source projects used in various Linux distributions.
The incident has prompted the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to highlight the vulnerabilities in the open-source ecosystem and the risks stemming from maintainer burnout.
CISA officials caution against placing the entire security burden on individual open-source maintainers and emphasize the responsibilities of technology manufacturers to support and contribute to open-source packages.
The agency recommends that technology manufacturers and system operators audit source code, eliminate vulnerabilities, and implement secure design principles to bolster the security of open-source components.
Bender Ginn and Arasaratnam advise maintainers to remain vigilant against social engineering attacks that exploit their sense of duty and manipulate their actions.
They encourage maintainers to pay attention to interactions that create self-doubt or inadequacy, as they may be indicative of a social engineering ploy.
