Read 2026-10-23
suitecrm/suitecrm: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in suitecrm/suitecrm's code and history at be52770: its licence, security advisories, releases, review practice, tests, dependencies and operations. Every finding cites the file and line it rests on. The full report also covers the team and asks the questions the code cannot answer.
| Dimension | Rating |
|---|---|
| Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance | strong |
| Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity | adequate |
| Product & Engineering Maturity | adequate |
| Security & Reliability Posture | adequate |
| Observability & Operations | not assessable |
| Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
What the repository says
- Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
stronginstall/demoData.en_us.php is 21,725 lines, 271× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 80 lines. 100 files exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 21,725. Size is not a defect on its own — some problems genuinely live in one place — but these are where merge conflicts, review fatigue and single-owner knowledge concentrate, and they are the first thing that slows an inheriting engineer down.
install/demoData.en_us.php:1 — 21,725 lines (271× median) |
jssource/src_files/include/SugarCharts/Jit/js/Jit/jit.js:1 — 21,258 lines (265× median) |
modules/jjwg_Maps/DataTables/media/js/jquery.dataTables.js:1 — 15,244 lines (190× median) |
modules/Calendar/fullcalendar/fullcalendar.js:1 — 15,148 lines (189× median) |
include/nusoap/nusoap.php:1 — 10,206 lines (127× median) |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
adequateTests cover a thin slice of the codebase
adequate352 test files against 5,119 source files (6.9%). This does not measure whether the tests are good, only whether enough of them exist for the codebase to be changed safely by someone who did not write it — which is exactly the situation after an acquisition.
| 352 test files / 5,119 source files |
Product & Engineering Maturity
adequateEffort is shifting from building to rewriting
adequateDeleted lines per line added rose from 0.61 to 2.08 between the first and second halves of this history. Rework is normal and often healthy, but a rising ratio means an increasing share of the team's time is spent replacing code that already exists rather than building what does not. Whether that is deliberate repayment or churn is a question for the team.
| first half 0.61, second half 2.08 (split 2020-04-05) |
0% of bug fixes add or change a test
adequateOf 148 fixes in the last 24 months, 0 touched a test. A fix without the test that would have caught the bug can quietly come back, and the suite never learns from what went wrong.
| 0 of 148 |
Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest pre-release, v8.0.0-beta.1, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v7.15.2. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
| tag v8.0.0-beta.1 |
Security & Reliability Posture
adequate71 deserialisers that can run code
adequate71 places read data with a deserialiser that executes what it reads (PHP `unserialize`). That is safe on data the system wrote itself and remote code execution on anything else. Ask where each one's input comes from.
Api/V8/Service/UserPreferencesService.php:98 — code-executing deserialiser |
ModuleInstall/PackageManager/PackageManager.php:919 — code-executing deserialiser |
include/Smarty/plugins/function.config_load.php:106 — code-executing deserialiser |
2 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities, 3 high or critical in what ships
adequate2 of 110 locked dependencies match 9 published advisories in OSV, 3 of them rated high or critical. A lockfile says which version is installed, not whether the flawed code is reachable from this product, so each needs a look. Most are fixed by an upgrade, and the advisory names the version.
composer.lock — guzzlehttp/guzzle 7.12.1: GHSA-v5mv-p594-2x33 (high), fixed in 7.15.2 |
composer.lock — zbateson/mail-mime-parser 2.4.1: GHSA-36h5-qg4p-q2qf (high), fixed in 3.0.6 |
Manifest says GPL-3.0, licence file says AGPL-3.0
adequatecomposer.json declares GPL-3.0. LICENSE.txt contains the text of AGPL-3.0. Package managers and downstream users read the first; auditors and acquirers read the second. One of them is wrong, and until it is settled the terms this code is offered under are genuinely ambiguous.
composer.json:6 — declares GPL-3.0 |
LICENSE.txt — text of AGPL-3.0 |
77 advisories against this project in the last 24 months, 50 high or critical
adequateThe newest was published on 2026-10-12. A project that publishes advisories is telling its users about its fixes, and the count and pace say how much security work it carries. The record is incomplete: NVD: 3 records name SuiteCRM with nothing tying them to this repository (CVE-2020-14208, CVE-2020-15300, CVE-2020-15301).
| 2026-10-12: GHSA-8rjm-vpj3-hch8 (high), fixed in 8.10.2: V8 JSON:API processAttributes() Missing ID Filter Allows ACL Bypass and Record Ownership Hijack |
| 2026-10-12: GHSA-6jf7-hh5p-8fcm (moderate), fixed in 8.10.2: V8 API Relationship Delete Bypasses Object-Level Authorization on the Related Record |
| 2026-10-12: GHSA-jhhh-64wx-fj9c (high), fixed in 8.10.2: Mass Assignment in V8 API Allows Modification of Sensitive User Fields (user_hash, external_auth_only) |
| 2026-10-12: GHSA-rxx9-4rg7-c3qp (high), fixed in 8.10.2: Privilege escalation via V8 REST modules (ACLRoles, ACLActions, Administration) |
| 2026-10-12: GHSA-rc46-hjjp-4jv5 (moderate), fixed in 8.10.2: V8 OAuth2 Username Enumeration |
Observability & Operations
not assessableNot rated: only 5 of 16 checks could reach a conclusion here; the rest do not apply to this repository or could not read it.
Fit with the Acquirer
not assessableNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
Read more, or read your own
The full report on suitecrm/suitecrm: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.
Survey a repository: free on public repositories. Private code is read on your own machine by a collector whose source you can read first.