The growing popularity of open source software presents new risks associated with vulnerable libraries. In response, organizations have adopted additional security tools, such as software composition analysis, that scan code libraries for vulnerabilities. These tools enable organizations to mitigate risk earlier in the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
Traditionally, companies tracked these vulnerabilities manually or sifted through volumes of code. Both approaches resulted in lost time and resources. To handle the increasing complexity of open source software, software composition analysis (SCA) has become an important tool. SCA scans software dependencies for security vulnerabilities with speed and reliability.
What is software composition analysis?
Software composition analysis is an application security methodology that tracks and analyzes open source software components. Fundamentally, SCA tools provide insight into open source license limitations and possible vulnerabilities in your projects. These tools help organizations stay abreast of critical tasks, including security, license compliance, and code quality, to minimize risk.
Software composition analysis provides three core capabilities:
- Build a software bill of materials (SBOM) to establish a detailed inventory of your open source software packages.
- Verify license compliance requirements by determining what open source software you’re using and where it originated.
- Discover detailed information about key vulnerabilities in your source code and provide applicable remediation suggestions.
How does software composition analysis work?
SCA tools work by running scans on a code base and creating a vulnerability analysis. The analysis outputs an SBOM that lists software components and their respective licenses. In addition, the scan inspects files to find vulnerable third-party libraries and provides insight into open source dependencies. The technology then compares the SBOM with other vulnerability databases to pinpoint critical vulnerabilities. Finally, an SCA tool offers remediation suggestions to resolve harmful vulnerabilities. As part of the process, SCA provides a full analysis of open source project health metrics.
For example, an organization that needs to establish a comprehensive security and compliance baseline can use software composition analysis to attain baseline license compliance and reveal security vulnerabilities. As teams further develop their code, they can use SCA to maintain license compliances and ensure consistent security.
The benefits of software composition analysis
Software composition analysis (SCA) offers invaluable benefits to developers and IT professionals committed to creating secure, high-quality software.
Enhanced security
One of SCA’s primary advantages is its ability to enhance software application security. SCA tools automatically scan your codebase to identify open source components and check them against known vulnerability databases.
License compliance
Open source components often come with specific licensing requirements that, if not adhered to, can lead to legal and financial repercussions. SCA tools help ensure compliance by analyzing the licenses of all components within your application, providing insights into potential intellectual property risks.
Improved development efficiency
By integrating SCA into the development lifecycle, teams can automate the vulnerability detection and license compliance process, freeing up valuable resources. This allows developers to focus more on building features and less on manual checks or patching insecure components.
Risk mitigation and quality assurance
SCA contributes to the overall quality assurance of software products. Organizations can ensure their applications are secure and reliable by effectively managing the risks associated with open source components.
The challenges of software composition analysis
Despite its advantages, SCA presents several challenges that must be addressed to utilize its full potential effectively.
- Managing the volume of open source components
The exponential growth of open source components in software development has led to a significant challenge in cataloging and managing these components within applications. With thousands of new open source libraries being added daily, SCA tools must possess robust indexing and update capabilities to ensure that they provide accurate and up-to-date information.
- Understanding license compliance
Open source software often comes with complex licensing terms, and noncompliance can lead to legal issues or intellectual property conflicts. Developers and IT professionals must carefully analyze and comply with these licenses, yet navigating the multitude of open source licenses remains daunting. SCA tools must be comprehensive and adept at identifying potential compliance risks.
- Identifying vulnerabilities
A critical function of SCA is the detection of security vulnerabilities within open source components. However, the sheer volume of potential vulnerabilities makes it challenging to prioritize which issues need immediate attention. False positives can divert resources away from actual threats, necessitating an efficient system for triaging alerts.
- Integration with CI/CD pipelines
For SCA to be effective, seamless integration into CI/CD pipelines is needed. The process requires careful planning and execution to ensure that SCA tools provide real-time insights without hindering development velocity.
How to implementing SCA in your development pipeline
Understanding SCA
Software composition analysis is a methodical approach to managing open source components within a codebase. It identifies vulnerabilities and licensing issues, providing developers with a comprehensive overview of their software’s security posture.
Key steps in implementing SCA
- Integration into CI/CD pipelines: This allows for real-time monitoring and identification of vulnerabilities as new code is committed.
- Automated scanning and reporting: These tools analyze the codebase for known vulnerabilities against databases and immediately alert developers to potential risks.
- Policy management and governance: SCA tools often provide governance features that allow teams to enforce dependency management policies, ensuring compliance with organizational standards and legal requirements.
- Continuous monitoring and updates: The dynamics of software development mean that vulnerabilities can appear at any time. Continuous monitoring and regular updates to the SCA tool’s vulnerability database guarantee that your security measures stay ahead of emerging threats.
How security can “shift left” in a DevSecOps lifecycle
One of SCA’s major benefits is that security pros can implement it into the initial stages of the SDLC. Teams can test projects for vulnerabilities in the early stages of development before those issues reach the build stage. This saves overall production costs and valuable resources.
Moreover, IT pros can use SCA to gain a better understanding of the open source software the organization uses and to track licenses. Accordingly, SCA tools can streamline the license management process and enforce security and license policies across the different stages of the SDLC.
Finally, SCA tools bridge the gap between detection and remediation by showing the location of vulnerabilities, assessing their impact, and suggesting remediation actions.
But software composition analysis tools alone are not enough
Despite their benefits, SCA tools don’t cover the entire security surface area. For one, SCA tools primarily focus on pre-production environments. This means you’re unable to scan for vulnerabilities exposed in production.
Additionally, although software composition analysis provides remediation suggestions for critical vulnerabilities, it does not prioritize them. As a result, IT pros are left to determine which issue to address first based on the current vulnerabilities and risk priority order. With limited time and resources, it can be difficult for security teams to prioritize vulnerabilities without deeper analysis.
Lastly, SCA tools don’t provide information about which pending issues are the most critical to your business assets. They also provide no context surrounding a vulnerability’s point of origin.
How to pair SCA with runtime application security
Although software composition analysis tools are limited, you can enhance their value by pairing them with another layer of security at runtime.
The Dynatrace Software Intelligence Platform analyzes the full impact and risks of vulnerabilities, in context, at runtime. The Dynatrace Application Security module not only delivers remediation suggestions but also eliminates false positives, prioritizing which critical issues to address first. Dynatrace OneAgent automatically discovers vulnerabilities in both production and pre-production environments, capturing the entire range of possible issues.
By incorporating key contextual information surrounding software vulnerabilities into the Davis Security Score, Dynatrace allows you to filter and prioritize issues to determine which ones your team must remediate immediately. Dynatrace Application Security eliminates blind spots and proactively identifies critical production risks earlier in the process, all to ensure your organization’s SDLC runs seamlessly.
To learn more about how Dynatrace helps eliminate runtime vulnerabilities at all points in production, join us for the on-demand webinar, Intelligent Automation for DevSecOps.
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