Falco

Projects that follow the best practices below can voluntarily self-certify and show that they've achieved an Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) best practices badge.

If this is your project, please show your badge status on your project page! The badge status looks like this: Badge level for project 2317 is passing Here is how to embed it:

These are the Silver level criteria. You can also view the Passing or Gold level criteria.

        

 Basics 14/17 ●

  • Identification

    Falco is an open-source runtime security project. Falco is a cloud-native security tool designed for Linux systems. It employs custom rules on kernel events, which are enriched with container and Kubernetes metadata, to provide real-time alerts. Falco helps you gain visibility into abnormal behavior, potential security threats, and compliance violations, contributing to comprehensive runtime security.

  • Prerequisites


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST achieve a passing level badge. [achieve_passing]

  • Basic project website content


    Enough for a badge!

    The information on how to contribute MUST include the requirements for acceptable contributions (e.g., a reference to any required coding standard). (URL required) [contribution_requirements]

    The information about the acceptable contribution is at this link:

    https://github.com/falcosecurity/.github/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#pull-requests


  • Project oversight


    Enough for a badge!

    The project SHOULD have a legal mechanism where all developers of non-trivial amounts of project software assert that they are legally authorized to make these contributions. The most common and easily-implemented approach for doing this is by using a Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO), where users add "signed-off-by" in their commits and the project links to the DCO website. However, this MAY be implemented as a Contributor License Agreement (CLA), or other legal mechanism. (URL required) [dco]

    https://github.com/falcosecurity/.github/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-certificate-of-origin


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST clearly define and document its project governance model (the way it makes decisions, including key roles). (URL required) [governance]

    https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/GOVERNANCE.md


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST adopt a code of conduct and post it in a standard location. (URL required) [code_of_conduct]

    https://github.com/falcosecurity/.github/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST clearly define and publicly document the key roles in the project and their responsibilities, including any tasks those roles must perform. It MUST be clear who has which role(s), though this might not be documented in the same way. (URL required) [roles_responsibilities]

    https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/OWNERS https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/rules/OWNERS


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST be able to continue with minimal interruption if any one person dies, is incapacitated, or is otherwise unable or unwilling to continue support of the project. In particular, the project MUST be able to create and close issues, accept proposed changes, and release versions of software, within a week of confirmation of the loss of support from any one individual. This MAY be done by ensuring someone else has any necessary keys, passwords, and legal rights to continue the project. Individuals who run a FLOSS project MAY do this by providing keys in a lockbox and a will providing any needed legal rights (e.g., for DNS names). (URL required) [access_continuity]

    https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/OWNERS


    Enough for a badge!

    The project SHOULD have a "bus factor" of 2 or more. (URL required) [bus_factor]

    https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/OWNERS


  • Documentation


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST have a documented roadmap that describes what the project intends to do and not do for at least the next year. (URL required) [documentation_roadmap]

    https://github.com/orgs/falcosecurity/projects/5 is constantly updated by maintainers ( https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/proposals/20230511-roadmap-management.md )


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST include documentation of the architecture (aka high-level design) of the software produced by the project. If the project does not produce software, select "not applicable" (N/A). (URL required) [documentation_architecture]

    The architecture specifications can be found: - At a higher level, in the documentation website: example https://falco.org/docs/getting-started/ and https://falco.org/docs/event-sources/kernel/architecture/ - At a lower level in the individual documented repositories that are used by each component: example https://github.com/falcosecurity/libs/blob/master/README.md


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST document what the user can and cannot expect in terms of security from the software produced by the project (its "security requirements"). (URL required) [documentation_security]

    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST provide a "quick start" guide for new users to help them quickly do something with the software. (URL required) [documentation_quick_start]

    https://falco.org/docs/getting-started/


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST make an effort to keep the documentation consistent with the current version of the project results (including software produced by the project). Any known documentation defects making it inconsistent MUST be fixed. If the documentation is generally current, but erroneously includes some older information that is no longer true, just treat that as a defect, then track and fix as usual. [documentation_current]

    The documentation is updated and kept consistent at each release and in between releases. Documentation update steps are also included in the release process https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/RELEASE.md. In addition, the website holds archives for a number of past releases.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project repository front page and/or website MUST identify and hyperlink to any achievements, including this best practices badge, within 48 hours of public recognition that the achievement has been attained. (URL required) [documentation_achievements]

    https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco


  • Accessibility and internationalization


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project (both project sites and project results) SHOULD follow accessibility best practices so that persons with disabilities can still participate in the project and use the project results where it is reasonable to do so. [accessibility_best_practices]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The software produced by the project SHOULD be internationalized to enable easy localization for the target audience's culture, region, or language. If internationalization (i18n) does not apply (e.g., the software doesn't generate text intended for end-users and doesn't sort human-readable text), select "not applicable" (N/A). [internationalization]

  • Other


    Enough for a badge!

    If the project sites (website, repository, and download URLs) store passwords for authentication of external users, the passwords MUST be stored as iterated hashes with a per-user salt by using a key stretching (iterated) algorithm (e.g., Argon2id, Bcrypt, Scrypt, or PBKDF2). If the project sites do not store passwords for this purpose, select "not applicable" (N/A). [sites_password_security]

    Falco does not offer login to any remote service, nor it has features that require storing passwords.


  • Previous versions


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST maintain the most often used older versions of the product or provide an upgrade path to newer versions. If the upgrade path is difficult, the project MUST document how to perform the upgrade (e.g., the interfaces that have changed and detailed suggested steps to help upgrade). [maintenance_or_update]

  • Bug-reporting process


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST use an issue tracker for tracking individual issues. [report_tracker]

    https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/issues


  • Vulnerability report process


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST give credit to the reporter(s) of all vulnerability reports resolved in the last 12 months, except for the reporter(s) who request anonymity. If there have been no vulnerabilities resolved in the last 12 months, select "not applicable" (N/A). (URL required) [vulnerability_report_credit]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST have a documented process for responding to vulnerability reports. (URL required) [vulnerability_response_process]

  • Coding standards


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST identify the specific coding style guides for the primary languages it uses, and require that contributions generally comply with it. (URL required) [coding_standards]

    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST automatically enforce its selected coding style(s) if there is at least one FLOSS tool that can do so in the selected language(s). [coding_standards_enforced]

    Falco uses clang-format for that, here's the config file https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/.clang-format


  • Working build system


    Enough for a badge!

    Build systems for native binaries MUST honor the relevant compiler and linker (environment) variables passed in to them (e.g., CC, CFLAGS, CXX, CXXFLAGS, and LDFLAGS) and pass them to compiler and linker invocations. A build system MAY extend them with additional flags; it MUST NOT simply replace provided values with its own. If no native binaries are being generated, select "not applicable" (N/A). [build_standard_variables]

    Falco uses CMake: https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/CMakeLists.txt


    Enough for a badge!

    The build and installation system SHOULD preserve debugging information if they are requested in the relevant flags (e.g., "install -s" is not used). If there is no build or installation system (e.g., typical JavaScript libraries), select "not applicable" (N/A). [build_preserve_debug]

    A debug build can be requested with

    cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..

    More info at: falco.org/docs/source/


    Enough for a badge!

    The build system for the software produced by the project MUST NOT recursively build subdirectories if there are cross-dependencies in the subdirectories. If there is no build or installation system (e.g., typical JavaScript libraries), select "not applicable" (N/A). [build_non_recursive]

    The Falco build system is crafted so that all the dependencies use an already built version of common dependencies. This happens with libcurl, libssl and libcrypto which are required by civetweb, sinsp and falco_engine itself.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST be able to repeat the process of generating information from source files and get exactly the same bit-for-bit result. If no building occurs (e.g., scripting languages where the source code is used directly instead of being compiled), select "not applicable" (N/A). [build_repeatable]

    Builds are repeatable. GCC produces the exact same bit-for-bit results and the project does not do any step to invalidate that. Probing two separately-built build artifacts built from the same source with sha256sum produces the same sha.


  • Installation system


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST provide a way to easily install and uninstall the software produced by the project using a commonly-used convention. [installation_common]

    Falco can be installed on a variety of platforms. Those are described in the documentation: https://falco.org/docs/installation/


    Enough for a badge!

    The installation system for end-users MUST honor standard conventions for selecting the location where built artifacts are written to at installation time. For example, if it installs files on a POSIX system it MUST honor the DESTDIR environment variable. If there is no installation system or no standard convention, select "not applicable" (N/A). [installation_standard_variables]

    Falco achieves this by using the GNUInstallsDir CMake module here https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/CMakeLists.txt#L36

    That means that we comply with the GNU coding standards for directory variables (DESTDIR is part of) https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Directory-Variables.html


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST provide a way for potential developers to quickly install all the project results and support environment necessary to make changes, including the tests and test environment. This MUST be performed with a commonly-used convention. [installation_development_quick]

    Falco achieves this in many points:


  • Externally-maintained components


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST list external dependencies in a computer-processable way. (URL required) [external_dependencies]

    Dependencies are all listed in the project's CMakeLists.txt since it can compile them in a 100% bundled and static way. https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/blob/master/CMakeLists.txt

    Even if static compilation is not used, the CMakeLists sets the unmet dependencies as requirements and checks for them to be met.


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    Projects MUST monitor or periodically check their external dependencies (including convenience copies) to detect known vulnerabilities, and fix exploitable vulnerabilities or verify them as unexploitable. [dependency_monitoring]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST either:
    1. make it easy to identify and update reused externally-maintained components; or
    2. use the standard components provided by the system or programming language.
    Then, if a vulnerability is found in a reused component, it will be easy to update that component. [updateable_reused_components]

    Enough for a badge!

    The project SHOULD avoid using deprecated or obsolete functions and APIs where FLOSS alternatives are available in the set of technology it uses (its "technology stack") and to a supermajority of the users the project supports (so that users have ready access to the alternative). [interfaces_current]

    The project only uses FLOSS technologies and keeps the used dependencies up to date.

    For example, we had a dependency on an outdated version of Python 2.7 for our integration tests. The Falco Maintainers updated that code to be written in Python 3 instead.


  • Automated test suite


    Enough for a badge!

    An automated test suite MUST be applied on each check-in to a shared repository for at least one branch. This test suite MUST produce a report on test success or failure. [automated_integration_testing]

    For each PR and on master, Falco executes an regression tests and unit tests suite.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST add regression tests to an automated test suite for at least 50% of the bugs fixed within the last six months. [regression_tests_added50]

    Every regression gets a specific regression test https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco/tree/master/test


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST have FLOSS automated test suite(s) that provide at least 80% statement coverage if there is at least one FLOSS tool that can measure this criterion in the selected language. [test_statement_coverage80]

  • New functionality testing


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST have a formal written policy that as major new functionality is added, tests for the new functionality MUST be added to an automated test suite. [test_policy_mandated]

    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST include, in its documented instructions for change proposals, the policy that tests are to be added for major new functionality. [tests_documented_added]

    https://github.com/falcosecurity/.github/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md


  • Warning flags


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    Projects MUST be maximally strict with warnings in the software produced by the project, where practical. [warnings_strict]

    Warning: Requires lengthier justification.


  • Secure development knowledge


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST implement secure design principles (from "know_secure_design"), where applicable. If the project is not producing software, select "not applicable" (N/A). [implement_secure_design]

  • Use basic good cryptographic practices

    Note that some software does not need to use cryptographic mechanisms. If your project produces software that (1) includes, activates, or enables encryption functionality, and (2) might be released from the United States (US) to outside the US or to a non-US-citizen, you may be legally required to take a few extra steps. Typically this just involves sending an email. For more information, see the encryption section of Understanding Open Source Technology & US Export Controls.

    Enough for a badge!

    The default security mechanisms within the software produced by the project MUST NOT depend on cryptographic algorithms or modes with known serious weaknesses (e.g., the SHA-1 cryptographic hash algorithm or the CBC mode in SSH). [crypto_weaknesses]

    The project does not use any cryptographic algorithms that have serious weaknesess.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project SHOULD support multiple cryptographic algorithms, so users can quickly switch if one is broken. Common symmetric key algorithms include AES, Twofish, and Serpent. Common cryptographic hash algorithm alternatives include SHA-2 (including SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384 AND SHA-512) and SHA-3. [crypto_algorithm_agility]

    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST support storing authentication credentials (such as passwords and dynamic tokens) and private cryptographic keys in files that are separate from other information (such as configuration files, databases, and logs), and permit users to update and replace them without code recompilation. If the project never processes authentication credentials and private cryptographic keys, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_credential_agility]

    The only area of the project where the project does authentication is the gRPC server. That is achieved using mutual TLS as described here https://grpc.io/docs/guides/auth/


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The software produced by the project SHOULD support secure protocols for all of its network communications, such as SSHv2 or later, TLS1.2 or later (HTTPS), IPsec, SFTP, and SNMPv3. Insecure protocols such as FTP, HTTP, telnet, SSLv3 or earlier, and SSHv1 SHOULD be disabled by default, and only enabled if the user specifically configures it. If the software produced by the project does not support network communications, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_used_network]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The software produced by the project SHOULD, if it supports or uses TLS, support at least TLS version 1.2. Note that the predecessor of TLS was called SSL. If the software does not use TLS, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_tls12]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The software produced by the project MUST, if it supports TLS, perform TLS certificate verification by default when using TLS, including on subresources. If the software does not use TLS, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_certificate_verification]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The software produced by the project MUST, if it supports TLS, perform certificate verification before sending HTTP headers with private information (such as secure cookies). If the software does not use TLS, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_verification_private]

  • Secure release


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST cryptographically sign releases of the project results intended for widespread use, and there MUST be a documented process explaining to users how they can obtain the public signing keys and verify the signature(s). The private key for these signature(s) MUST NOT be on site(s) used to directly distribute the software to the public. If releases are not intended for widespread use, select "not applicable" (N/A). [signed_releases]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    It is SUGGESTED that in the version control system, each important version tag (a tag that is part of a major release, minor release, or fixes publicly noted vulnerabilities) be cryptographically signed and verifiable as described in signed_releases. [version_tags_signed]

  • Other security issues


    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project results MUST check all inputs from potentially untrusted sources to ensure they are valid (an *allowlist*), and reject invalid inputs, if there are any restrictions on the data at all. [input_validation]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    Hardening mechanisms SHOULD be used in the software produced by the project so that software defects are less likely to result in security vulnerabilities. [hardening]

    Unknown required information, not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST provide an assurance case that justifies why its security requirements are met. The assurance case MUST include: a description of the threat model, clear identification of trust boundaries, an argument that secure design principles have been applied, and an argument that common implementation security weaknesses have been countered. (URL required) [assurance_case]

  • Static code analysis


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST use at least one static analysis tool with rules or approaches to look for common vulnerabilities in the analyzed language or environment, if there is at least one FLOSS tool that can implement this criterion in the selected language. [static_analysis_common_vulnerabilities]

    The Falco project uses cppcheck with everything enabled.


  • Dynamic code analysis


    Not enough for a badge.

    If the software produced by the project includes software written using a memory-unsafe language (e.g., C or C++), then at least one dynamic tool (e.g., a fuzzer or web application scanner) MUST be routinely used in combination with a mechanism to detect memory safety problems such as buffer overwrites. If the project does not produce software written in a memory-unsafe language, choose "not applicable" (N/A). [dynamic_analysis_unsafe]


This data is available under the Creative Commons Attribution version 3.0 or later license (CC-BY-3.0+). All are free to share and adapt the data, but must give appropriate credit. Please credit Michael Ducy and the OpenSSF Best Practices badge contributors.

Project badge entry owned by: Michael Ducy.
Entry created on 2018-11-01 20:11:46 UTC, last updated on 2023-08-01 12:01:29 UTC. Last achieved passing badge on 2020-09-28 14:40:31 UTC.

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