Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

With the rapid and dynamic nature of the digital world of today, businesses are seeing a mounting high rate of cybersecurity attacks. Cyber attackers keep evolving and coming up with new methods of breaching their systems, which leaves security teams under immense pressure to identify, assess, and remediate vulnerabilities at scale. Traditional methods of vulnerability management are typically behind the curve because the sheer volume of threats is overwhelming.

Developers are trapped in a loop: constantly chasing dependency upgrades to mitigate security risks or chasing down security reports of vulnerable code or findings in the CI pipeline. Developers often refer to this as “vulnerability fatigue,” a term commonly referenced in npm package install logs that list the newly introduced security vulnerabilities for third-party dependencies.

Speed and innovation rule in software development, which makes it easy to overlook one crucial aspect: security. As a Staff Solutions Engineer at Snyk, I’ve seen firsthand how a single overlooked vulnerability can spiral into a crisis, affecting businesses, customers, and trust. Secure coding isn’t just about writing better code—it’s about protecting what matters, which includes the credibility and reputation of individuals, teams, and the business.

On March 14, 2025, the popular GitHub action tj-actions/changed-files was compromised, exposing secrets in CI logs. GitGuardian's analysis identified leaked secrets like GitHub tokens, AWS keys, and more.

In the afternoon on Friday, March 14, 2025, details began to emerge about a serious security exploit on a popular GitHub Action called changed files (tj-actions/changed-files). About 23,000 GitHub repos use this Action as part of their CI and DevOps workflows. It allows you to track which files have changed across branches and commits. An attacker with write privileges on the Action repo made a commit that caused encrypted secrets to appear in plaintext in the GitHub Action logs.

On March 14, 2025, StepSecurity uncovered a compromise in the popular GitHub Action tj-actions/changed-files. Tens of thousands of repositories use this action to track file changes, and it is now known to have been tampered with, posing a risk to both public and private projects. A CVE has been created for this issue: CVE-2025-30066.

A devastating new remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability, CVE-2025-24813, is now actively exploited in the wild. Attackers need just one PUT API request to take over vulnerable Apache Tomcat servers. The exploit, originally published by a Chinese forum user iSee857, is already available online: CVE-2025-24813 PoC by iSee857.

Managing the risks of AI development tools is crucial for organizations looking to responsibly and effectively leverage this technology’s potential. AI offers transformative capabilities, particularly in coding assistance, where tools can speed up development and reduce manual workloads. However, these benefits can come with risks, such as security vulnerabilities and compliance challenges, that cannot be overlooked.