Advisory Mining -- Finding Incomplete Fixes

When to Use

Looking for high-acceptance-rate findings. Incomplete fix variants have ~95% acceptance rate because:

1. The vulnerability class is already acknowledged
2. The fix proves the maintainer cares about security
3. The variant proves the fix was insufficient

Process

Step 1: Find Recent Advisories

# GitHub Advisory API -- recent npm advisories
gh api graphql -f query='
{
  securityAdvisories(first: 20, orderBy: {field: PUBLISHED_AT, direction: DESC}, ecosystem: NPM) {
    nodes {
      ghsaId
      summary
      severity
      publishedAt
      vulnerabilities(first: 5) {
        nodes {
          package { name ecosystem }
          vulnerableVersionRange
          firstPatchedVersion { identifier }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}'

# Search by keyword
gh api "/advisories?ecosystem=npm&keyword=injection&per_page=20"
gh api "/advisories?ecosystem=pip&keyword=traversal&per_page=20"

Step 2: Read the Patch Diff

For each advisory:

1. Find the fix commit (linked in the advisory or CHANGELOG)
2. Read the diff carefully
3. Ask: what did they fix? What did they NOT fix?

# Find security-related commits
git log --oneline --all | grep -i "security\|fix\|vuln\|CVE\|patch\|sanitize"

# Read the patch
git show <commit_hash>
git diff <before_commit>..<fix_commit>

Step 3: Check for Incomplete Fix Patterns

Common incomplete fixes:

What Was Fixed	What Was Missed
../ blocked	..\ not blocked (Windows)
__proto__ filtered	constructor.prototype not filtered
One regex fixed	Similar regex in same file not fixed
One function fixed	Wrapper function calls it differently
Parsing fixed	Serialization has same bug
Validation added	Can be bypassed with encoding
One entry point fixed	Other entry points not covered
Input sanitized	Error messages leak unsanitized data

Step 4: Search for Same Pattern in Other Packages

If the vulnerability is in a common pattern (e.g., path.join without validation), search for it in similar packages:

# Use grep.app to find same pattern across repos
# See cross-pollination skill for details

Step 5: Verify the Variant

Apply the fp-check skill to verify the variant is real before submitting.

NVD API

# Search NVD for CVEs by keyword
curl "https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?keywordSearch=xml+parser+javascript"

# Search by CPE
curl "https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cpeName=cpe:2.3:a:vendor:product:*"

CVSS Guidance

Variant findings typically get:

• Same CVSS as original if the variant has same impact
• Higher CVSS if the variant bypasses the fix AND adds new impact
• Lower CVSS if the variant has additional prerequisites

References

• Diff Analysis -- How to read security patches
• GHSA API -- GitHub Advisory API usage