PolicyEngine / PolicyEngine/policyengine-us

Security: verify the downloaded Taxsim executable before execution

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#7,982 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
Python
Stars
163
Forks
213
Avg merge
3d 3h
Merged PRs (30d)
96

Description

## Summary
`policyengine-us` downloads and executes the Taxsim binary without integrity verification.

## Severity
Medium

## Impact
If the upstream download or mirror is compromised, arbitrary code executes in developer or CI environments.

## Affected code
- `policyengine_us/tools/taxsim/generate_taxsim_tests.py:119-127,147-152`

## Details
The executable is fetched over the network, written to disk, made executable, and then executed with no checksum or signature verification.

## Expected behavior
Downloaded executables should be pinned to an expected digest or signature before execution.

## Suggested remediation
- Require a pinned SHA-256 digest or signature verification step
- Refuse execution if verification metadata is missing or mismatched
- Add tests covering verification failure paths

Contributor guide

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Assessment

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