Node.js Security Progress Report – More Successful December Outcomes

December was a busy month! We handled more reports and more fixes than ever. In fact, we spent most of our time working on fixes, which is exactly as it should be. We are also starting work on ecosystem issues, which will be an important improvement to Node.js security in 2023.

In 2022, we started receiving assistance from the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) Project Alpha-Omega grant to support more resources to help with Node.js security at the OpenJS Foundation. As always, we are very grateful for this support of open source software. 

We finished the year on a strong note – check out these tweets on @nodejs to see the progress made!

Fixing and triaging 9 issues

5 HackerOne reports were fixed or triaged, 2 previous reports had the fixes disclosed, and 2 ecosystem issues were handled with one having a fix approved and one fixed and released.

Starting new work on ecosystem issues

Ecosystem adoption is a key component to Node.js security. We are finishing the permission model, and will be looking to increase participation on GitHub when it is finalized and ready for use. The end goal is a smooth process for installing a package with the correct tag.

In December, we fixed 2 vulnerabilities for Fastify and one has already been disclosed: https://github.com/fastify/fastify/security/advisories/GHSA-3fjj-p79j-c9hh.

OpenSSL update 

OpenSSL announced a low vulnerability issue that affects OpenSSL 3.x users which means Node.js v18+. We evaluated the issue and disclosed our assessment. This vulnerability doesn’t affect Node.js and will be fixed in regular releases.

Node.js releases

There were 3 regular releases in December. We hope to have the next security release out by the end of January 2023. Stay tuned!

Join us!

We had one Security Working Group meeting in December and three Technical Steering Committee meetings. If you want to get involved, let us know!