Matt Cowley

Open-source Software Engineer by night @AlveusSanctuary 🌎 + @nodejs 💚 + @cdnjs 🛠️ | 25 | he/him | Tweets my own 💙

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

The temptation to leave tech and run away to some charity in the countryside doing good for the world increases evermore each day.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@AikidoSecurity Heh, well, this is a nice bit of justification that I was right to be worried when a Rust WASM binary showed up in Cloudflare's wrangler last week. Luckily, that turned out to be legitimate, though!

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

Grateful to the folks at Cloudflare who’ve been working to reduce this risk the last few days.

- Package moved to the Astro org, no single-author control
- Binary replaced with lightweight native TS version
- Bundled into the wrangler build to avoid the install-time dependency

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

https://t.co/CnbaccDGMS

https://t.co/6rpw1svHiL

Thanks again to the folks working on this!

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

👀 Cloudflare's wrangler CLI (~20m installs/week) has a new dependency... a ~600kb WASM binary used by no other package on npm: `rosie-skills`. I've been told that it is a legitimate package published by an employee, but it really looks like the start of a supply chain attack...

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

Grateful to the folks at Cloudflare who’ve been working to reduce this risk the last few days.

- Package moved to the Astro org, no single-author control
- Binary replaced with lightweight native TS version
- Bundled into the wrangler build to avoid the install-time dependency

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@ryanmr @HenkPoley Matthew is one of Astro's founders, I believe? But either way, at least it is in an org now where multiple folks have control instead of a single person. And yeh, agree, don't understand why this needs to be installed every time rather than being optional for just that feature.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@martindonadieu @paxaral Eh, it's slightly better, there are multiple folks there with control, it isn't tied to a single person.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@sdrth @Cloudflare Or pin the version they install (which I’ve been told they’re now going to do), or make the dependency entirely optional because does everyone really need a large binary to manage agent skills when they’re using wrangler to deploy stuff?

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@tomaszs2 Not great. We were ignored on Discord the day before when raising concerns. So, filed the issue and tweeted the next day. Was surprised to see them dismiss the concerns in the issue and immediately lock it. Had to reach out on Discord again where they finally realised the risk.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@leilavclark Good news is that Cloudflare confirmed it is https://t.co/Wu5NBRuvM3, and the binary is legit. Haven’t yet got clarification on why a large binary to manage agent skills is required for every install of wrangler though.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@martindonadieu @paxaral Who the author is doesn’t really change the risk, any employee with sole access to a package that ships a compiled binary could go rogue if they wanted to ship an update with malicious code hidden in it. Luckily, they’ve now moved the package into the Astro org to prevent that.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@yuvadm @aethernet_port @BenjaminEHowe They confirmed that it is https://t.co/Wu5NBRuvM3, something for managing agent skills, but they have not explained why it is a required dependency for every wrangler install.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@HenkPoley @ryanmr Yeh, they’ve moved it into the Astro org as a follow up to this, so it is no longer controlled by a single employee.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@aethernet_port @BenjaminEHowe > they unlocked it when I replied

The issue has been locked since I posted it, and they initially replied. They haven't unlocked it (hence I had to contact them via Discord for further discussion).

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@alkimiadev @ryanmr Agree with your thinking on this. I have asked if this dependency actually needs to be a required dependency -- I can't see why everyone using wrangler to deploy their stuff needs to manage agent skills -- or whether this can be an optional dependency for just that feature.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@aethernet_port @BenjaminEHowe I wouldn't say they were unfriendly, but they were rather dismissive and immediately locked the issue. I had to then reach out to them via Discord to explain the issue further before they understood and acknowledged how this could become a supply chain attack.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@dok2001 @loadingalias @danielhayesmith Thank you! Hopefully it can be made an optional dependency as well, I can’t imagine most folks using wrangler to deploy things need a tool for managing agent skills.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@bygregorr That’s all the justification they’ve given so far, and linked to the source repo in the GitHub repo.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@loadingalias @danielhayesmith @dok2001 The update I got on Discord is that they’re planning to pin it, but I haven’t heard concrete plans beyond that yet, though from the GitHub issue it sounds like they’re exploring reducing the size by replacing the WASM binary with a JS implementation, so we’ll see.

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@danielhayesmith @dok2001 Cloudflare have confirmed in the GitHub issue that it is a legitimate dependency. However, not sure they’ve fully understood the risk is still there as this employee could later use this as a backdrop by publishing a new version, say if they were to be laid off…

[Matt Cowley @MattIPv4]

@ryanmr Yeh, it is indeed a WASM version of that embedded into wrangler. Even knowing the author, still seems like such a risk to rely on a large binary shipped by a single employee. If they get laid-off and aren’t happy, they have a direct backdoor into every wrangler install…