Securing Your Rust Dependencies: A Comprehensive Guide

The Risks of Unsecured Dependencies

When you add a dependency to your Rust project, you’re essentially inviting someone else’s code into your application. This can be a recipe for disaster if the dependency contains vulnerabilities or malicious code. The JavaScript world has seen its fair share of high-profile incidents, including the infamous npm library hijacking. Don’t assume that Rust is immune to these types of threats.

Assessing Your Dependencies

To ensure the security of your dependencies, you need to assess the ones you’re currently using. You can use tools like cargo-audit to scan your Cargo.toml file and identify any known vulnerabilities. This tool is built by the Rust Secure Code working group and uses the RustSec Advisory Database to check for advisories.

cargo audit

Checking Sources and Licenses with cargo-deny

While cargo-audit checks for vulnerabilities, cargo-deny takes it a step further by checking the sources and licenses of your dependencies. This tool helps you ensure that your dependencies are compatible with your project’s license and that you’re not inadvertently using code with restrictive licenses.

cargo deny

Keeping Your Dependencies Up to Date

One of the most effective ways to secure your dependencies is to keep them up to date. Use tools like cargo outdated to identify dependencies that need to be updated. Be cautious when updating major versions, as they may introduce breaking changes.

cargo outdated

Reducing Duplicate Dependencies

Duplicate dependencies can lead to increased build times and a larger attack surface. Use cargo duplicates to identify duplicate dependencies and consider consolidating them to reduce the risk.

cargo duplicates

Identifying Unsafe Code with cargo-geiger

Rust prides itself on safety, but sometimes you may need to use unsafe code. Use cargo-geiger to identify packages that contain unsafe code and review them carefully to ensure they don’t pose a risk to your application.

cargo geiger

Sharing the Load with cargo-crev

Code reviews are an essential part of securing your dependencies. Use cargo-crev to create a digital fingerprint and share reviews with others. This tool allows you to trust reviews from other developers and helps distribute the load of reviewing code.

cargo crev

• Use cargo crev reproducible to create a reproducible build.
• Share your reviews with others using cargo crev publish.