Software Composition
Analysis (SCA)
Enhance Security with Open Source Management
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) involves automating the visibility into the use of open-source software (OSS) to manage risks, ensure security, and maintain license compliance. As open-source software becomes increasingly prevalent across industries, the necessity to track these components grows significantly to safeguard companies from vulnerabilities and potential issues. Given that most software development now relies heavily on open source, manual tracking becomes impractical, making it essential to automate the scanning of source code, binaries, and dependencies.
Methodology
Our red teaming methodology is as follows:
Codebase Scanning and SBOM Generation
The SCA solution scans the codebase and generates a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) listing all open-source components, including dependencies resolved during the build process.
Component Documentation
It documents key details about the detected components, such as license information, version, and detection location.
Identification Accuracy
The accuracy of this documentation depends on the comprehensiveness of the open-source database used for identification.
Vulnerability Detection
The SCA solution identifies associated open-source security vulnerabilities, including Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs).
Alerts and Notifications
It can alert administrators or security stakeholders about detected vulnerabilities or potential license conflicts.
Policy Compliance and Remediation
Advanced SCA tools can compare detected open-source components against defined policies, blocking project promotion into production or notifying stakeholders to speed up remediation.
CI/CD Integration
Many SCA solutions integrate with CI/CD pipelines to automatically scan projects or new versions with each commit.
Benefits
Cybersecurity is important because it protects organizational assets and services from malicious attacks and safeguards all types of data, including but not limited to sensitive data, protected health information (PHI), and personally identifiable information (PII) from theft and loss.
Our Approach
Our cyber security approach prioritizes a layered, proactive defense strategy encompassing robust network security, vigilant endpoint protection, strict access controls, regular vulnerability assessments, employee security awareness training, and a rapid incident response plan, ensuring the protection of sensitive data and systems against evolving cyber threats by focusing on the “people, process, and technology” pillars.
Our security team ensures robust software security by identifying all third-party components and dependencies. We use automated tools like OWASP Dependency-Check to scan the codebase and leverage package managers (e.g., npm, Maven, pip) to list dependencies. We also review manifest files such as package.json, pom.xml, and requirements.txt to maintain a complete inventory of all third-party components.
To accurately identify each component and its version, we generate cryptographic hashes to uniquely recognize all components. We also perform version mapping by extracting versioning information from manifest files and cross-referencing it with public repositories, such as Maven Central and PyPI, to confirm the exact versions in use. This ensures precise identification and monitoring of all third-party components.
intelligenceX’s security team cross-references component versions with vulnerability databases such as the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) , GitHub Security Advisories, and vendor-specific advisories. Additionally, we develop custom scripts to automate querying vulnerability databases using component identifiers, such as CVE IDs, ensuring comprehensive detection and proactive mitigation of security risks. Reporting
Upon completing our assessment, we deliver a comprehensive analysis and executive summary, outlining effective remediation steps. Our reports are designed to be clear and concise, including an executive summary, a review of strategic strengths and weaknesses, a list of identified vulnerabilities with risk ratings, the specific lines of code affected by each security risk, and detailed steps for risk remediation.
FAQ's
What to look for in a software composition analysis solution?
An effective software composition analysis (SCA) solution should:
• Identify and monitor all open-source components
• Ensure open-source license compliance and mitigate risks
• Detect and address open-source vulnerabilities
• Provide adaptable scanning options based on specific needs
• Integrate smoothly with your organization’s build environment
Why is Software composition analysis important?
Implementing SCA is crucial to ensuring the security and compliance of all components in your applications. Unidentified open-source usage can pose security risks that bad actors might exploit, as well as license compliance issues that could lead to legal challenges, impacting your intellectual property, reputation, and bottom line.
Why do organziations need SCA?
Organizations need Software Composition Analysis (SCA) to identify and manage open-source components in their software, ensuring there are no vulnerabilities. This helps reduce security risks and enhance overall software quality.
What does risk assessment mean in SCA?
Risk assessment in SCA examines the security, legal, and operational risks tied to open-source components. SCA tools evaluate vulnerabilities, license terms, and maintenance status, providing a detailed risk profile. This helps organizations prioritize remediation efforts and manage risks effectively.