16–17 Jun 2026
Umeå Universitet
Europe/Copenhagen timezone

Benign-Looking Code Changes for Software Supply Chain Attacks

16 Jun 2026, 10:15
45m
HUM.D.210 Hummelhonung (Umeå Universitet)

HUM.D.210 Hummelhonung

Umeå Universitet

Biblioteksgränd 5 Umeå, Sweden
Talks and presentations Talks

Speaker

Alexandre Bartel (Umeå University)

Description

Software supply chain attacks can rely on multiple vectors, targeting the different stages of the software lifecycle from compromizing the build servers to social engineering on developers. After an overview of these techniques, we discuss an approach which introduces stealthy code changes to activate individual gadgets. In the context of Java deserialization, these gadgets could be combined to form full chains leading to RCE. We present empirical insights into the prevalence of such an attack vector in real code bases. Identifying code locations where gadgets can be introduced is the first step to prevent such supply chain attacks.

Length 45 minutes

Author

Alexandre Bartel (Umeå University)

Presentation materials

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