What the fork?

Abstract

This work presents findings and mitigations on an understudied issue, which we term shrinkwrapped clones, that is endemic to the npm software package ecosystem. A shrink-wrapped clone is a package which duplicates, or near-duplicates, the code of another package without any indication or reference to the original package. This phenomenon represents a challenge to the hygiene of package ecosystems, as a clone package may siphon interest from the package being cloned, or create hidden duplicates of vulnerable, insecure code which can fly under the radar of audit processes.

Topics & Concepts