Defend Developers

Protect against malicious attacks and unintended consequences

Protect Developer Keys & Secrets

Open-source packages are installed in a locked down environment that restricts access to the network, filesystem, and environment variables

A package is installed that sends the developers authentication credentials off to a remote server controlled by the attacker

The sandbox prevents the malicious package from reaching out to the service and protects the developer's credentials

The Phylum Birdcage

An open-source, freely available solution to sandbox package installations and protect developers

The sandbox ships as part of our phylum CLI, which can be installed with the following:

curl https://sh.phylum.io | sh -

‍

You can run any package manager command through Phylum to take advantage of the sandbox. For example, installing react via Phylum:

phylum npm install react

‍

To make things easier and more seamless, you can alias the package manager to phylum and run package manager commands as you normally would:

alias npm="phylum npm"

npm install react

Birdcage Bug Bounty

Attack the developer during package install and steal their secret key

Steal the secret key - win the bounty

Developers are under attack. Typosquats, dependency confusion and obfuscated code are persistent threats during package installation. Phylum.io has built a sandbox that limits access to the filesystem, environment variables and the network.

For example:

phylum npm install pkgName

The sandbox is free, open source, and built into the Phylum CLI. Both of which are available on Github.

How to participate

Create an NPM package that runs a pre/post- install hook
In the install hook, read the data at /treasure/key
POST the contents of this file to the URL below. If successful, you will get a JSON response back that includes additional instructions. Note this host is only accessible from inside the CTF playground. There is no external route.

http://exfil.phylum.app:9090

‍

Rules of engagement

A successful attack should focus on breaking out of the sandbox, and simulate an attacker exfiltrating data during package installation.
To win the bounty, you must provide a detailed writeup describing how you escaped the sandbox.
Do not publish your packages to NPM. This will disqualify you.

Subscribe to our Research

Steal the secret key - win the bounty

How to participate

Rules of engagement