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Adds a custom CodeQL query (.github/codeql/openssl-return-check.ql) that detects calls to OpenSSL EVP_* functions whose return value is not guarded by the OQS_OPENSSL_GUARD macro. Integrates the query into a new CodeQL workflow (.github/workflows/codeql.yml) that runs on every PR and push to main. The query was originally written by Trail of Bits during their audit of liboqs and reported in issue open-quantum-safe#1867. Closes open-quantum-safe#1867 Signed-off-by: Vishnu Ajith <27vishnu07@gmail.com>
Addresses Scorecard Token-Permissions finding: security-events write permission scoped to codeql job only, not workflow level. Signed-off-by: Vishnu Ajith <27vishnu07@gmail.com>
Replace inline queries: path with a codeql-config.yml config file. The CodeQL init action requires local queries to be referenced via a config file rather than a direct relative path in the queries field. Signed-off-by: Vishnu Ajith <27vishnu07@gmail.com>
The CodeQL cpp extractor pre-finalize script crashes with exit code 134 when the trapCaches/cpp/tarballs directory does not exist on the runner. Disabling TRAP caching avoids the crash. Signed-off-by: Vishnu Ajith <27vishnu07@gmail.com>
Replace config-file approach with inline queries field combining security-and-quality suite with the custom EVP return check query, as suggested by @baentsch. Remove codeql-config.yml. Signed-off-by: Vishnu Ajith <27vishnu07@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Vishnu Ajith <27vishnu07@gmail.com>
Adding upload: false to the analyze step prevents the SARIF conflict with GitHub's default CodeQL setup which is enabled on this repo. The query still runs and catches issues but does not upload results. Signed-off-by: Vishnu Ajith <27vishnu07@gmail.com>
Add bad example at .github/codeql/test/openssl-return-check-bad.c to confirm the query catches unchecked EVP_* calls. Document verification steps in CONTRIBUTING.md. Signed-off-by: Vishnu Ajith <27vishnu07@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Vishnu Ajith <27vishnu07@gmail.com>
Address the review concerns from open-quantum-safe#2415: - Do not upload results to code scanning, which rejects CodeQL results from other workflows while default setup is enabled. Instead, print each result as an error annotation and fail the job if there are any - Run only liboqs's own queries, since the standard suite already runs via default setup. - Add CodeQL unit tests for each query which run in a seperate job - Analyse a full default build with OpenSSL used for AES, SHA2 and SHA3 - Flag only EVP_* calls whose return value is discarded, since there are other safe ways beyond OQS_OPENSSL_GUARD to check this. - In pr.yml, depend on check-push-result rather than basic-checks and drop `security-events: write`, so the job can be run in forks. The workflow currently reports 119 unchecked EVP_* calls in src/common. These will be fixed separately. Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-5.5 Signed-off-by: Owen Waldron <owen.waldron@uwaterloo.ca>
Assited-by: Claude:claude-opus-5.5 Signed-off-by: Owen Waldron <owen.waldron@uwaterloo.ca>
These were detected using the codeql workflow. Signed-off-by: Owen Waldron <owen.waldron@uwaterloo.ca>
owaldron
requested review from
baentsch,
dstebila and
xuganyu96
as code owners
October 16, 2026 18:00
|
coverage: 80.307% (-4.2%) from 84.466% — owaldron:feat/revived-codeql-openssl-return-check into open-quantum-safe:main |
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This PR revives #2415 by addressing the main concerns cited at its closure. This PR adds a
codeql.ymlworkflow to enable custom CodeQL queries. This new workflow runs in parallel to GitHub's default OpenQL queries (which is enabled by repo code scan settings). Theopenssl-return-checkquery is also added to verify OpenSSL status codes are being checked, resolving #1867. This required adding missingOQS_OPENSSL_GUARDwhere appropriate. Other issues like #1868 can use the providedcodeql.ymlframework to implement solutions too.Inspired by this comment by @baentsch, instead of uploading an artifact, this workflow will print errors to the job log, annotate the PR, and fail when errors were encountered. A demo of what this looks like can be found here: (demo PR, failing check, inline annotation).
Additional enhancements to the
codeql.ymlworkflow include:OQS_OPENSSL_GUARDto check this (eg.if (EVP_DigestInit_ex(...) != 1) {...}).security-events: write, so the job can be run in forks.Generative AI Disclosure: The original PR had no disclosed use of generative AI. Generative AI was used to draft code and write tests for the ammendments. All generated code was reviewed and modified when appropriate before inclusion. Generative AI was also used to generate the demo PRs.