What is open source vulnerability scanning — and why is it so important?

Why are organizations investing in open source software - and more importantly, what is open source vulnerability scanning?

Evolving customer demands and increased competition have driven many organizations to boost their digital transformation efforts, requiring them to innovate faster through more frequent software development releases. In turn, organizations are adopting DevOps practices and open-source code in order to increase the speed and efficiency of their software delivery.

For instance, Synopsys released a 2022 report highlighting the trends in open source use within commercial and custom-built applications. The report revealed that of the 2,409 code bases audited, 97% contained open-source code. However, open-source code libraries are highly vulnerable to security risks given the ease of availability of code, which enables malicious actors to identify weak points in that code. Traditional application security measures leave blind spots in open-source libraries, making open-source vulnerability scanning and management more crucial than ever.

What is open-source vulnerability scanning?

Nowadays, most major software packages include open-source software, as it helps organizations of all sizes - but particularly leaner, smaller ones - move in a faster, more efficient manner. Developers typically use open-source software in order to speed up the development of an application. Open-source software can help release applications at a much faster rate so that the organization's business requirements are met without utilizing too much time or resources.

While open-source software can provide these great benefits, implementing it can also attract unwanted security vulnerabilities. This is where open-source vulnerability scanners come in. Open-source vulnerability scanners can inspect for security weaknesses in open-source software that can make a project susceptible to attacks or poor performance. An open-source vulnerability scanner can also reveal issues with security, licensing, and even code quality. It can also match different open-source components with public and proprietary vulnerability databases to establish a risk profile. Doing so helps fix the risks through patches or other recommended fixes.

How does open-source vulnerability scanning work?

Automatically scanning software with a vulnerability scanner can reveal which open-source components are the culprit for triggering severe issues to an application. Since a single open-source library could have many direct and transitive dependencies, automating the scanning process can greatly reduce the amount of time spent manually sifting through data. By inspecting package managers, manifest files, source code, binary files, and container images to identify open-source components, automatic scanning also creates a list of open-source components in an application. The open-source vulnerability scanner can compare the list of identified open sources with a variety of databases, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Vulnerability Database (NVD).

An open-source vulnerability scanner then identifies all problems with open-source licenses and detects outdated open-source libraries in a codebase.

Finally, after checking for possible open-source anomalies, the scanner generates a report that provides insight into open-source development. The findings of the report can help your team better determine a remediation path and ensure that anomalies, outdated software, improperly used licenses, and security practice deviations are all addressed before making an impactful decision such as bringing the entire development cycle to a halt.

Why do organizations use open-source vulnerability scanning tools?

Open-source vulnerability scanning helps to overcome some of the inevitable challenges when developing software with open-source components. It also helps to ensure compliance, auditing, and licensing, as open-source software frequently faces many license compliance issues. In some cases, there could also be significant development gaps. With outdated open-source code, developers are at risk of encountering compatibility issues with the rest of the codebase or introducing obsolete functionalities into an application.

With open-source vulnerability scanning, developers can do the following:

1. Identify and resolve vulnerabilities in open-source code software before a cyber attacker has the chance to exploit them.
2. Monitor open-source licenses.
3. Locate areas where there are any outdated open-source components and update them in a timely manner.
4. Reduce overall business and operational risk.

Even if an open-source vulnerability scanner tests the software and detects zero open-source vulnerabilities, new vulnerabilities may be discovered at some point in the future that can affect a component version previously thought to be secure.

Open-source vulnerability management tools can also help to protect against zero-day vulnerabilities. Because open-source code is open to everyone, malicious actors and open-source developers may discover vulnerabilities at a fast pace. Until a patch is available and deployed by a component's users, attackers can exploit those vulnerabilities. However, open-source software vulnerability scanning tools can catch any vulnerabilities and isolate impacted code, even before a patch is released. This enables the segmentation of affected systems while a patch is in development.

What are some drawbacks and risks of open-source vulnerability scanning?

According to the Synopsys report, outdated open-source software continues to be the norm, including the presence of vulnerable Log4j versions (Log4j was an application vulnerability that emerged in late 2021). From an operational risk and maintenance perspective, 85% of the codebases contained open-source components that were more than four years old, while 88% used components from a later version. Meanwhile, 49% of audited code bases in 2022 contained at least one high-risk vulnerability, while 81% of the assessed codebases had at least one known open-source vulnerability.

These are not the only risks related to open-source vulnerability. Some others include the following:

• Active threats and open-source risks. When working with open-source solutions, ensuring that your systems are up to date is critical. Other notable threats against open source applications include SQL injections, cross-site scripting (XSS), removing code execution, Log4Shell, Spring4Shell, and others. The main challenge is knowing which vulnerability affects all or part of your application and code, and subsequently, where open-source scanner solutions can help. Identifying risks and vulnerabilities in open-source code allows you to quickly resolve threats while also benefiting from open-source solutions. With the right toolset, you can even automatically detect and block attacks that can originate from open-source repositories.
• Unknown developers. There are many talented developers in our world today. Some, however, don't follow best practices, which becomes especially concerning when using outdated open-source tools. Your requested application or services might work, but does the developer or team know if there are security gaps? Are they operating on the latest possible platform? To overcome these challenges it is imperative to work with reputable, well-maintained development teams on supported projects.
• Variable security practices. Rapid growth or disjointed application development requests can create holes in security practices. Working with a team of developers with a solid and standardized security practice is necessary. Specifically, they must operate on the latest open-source iterations, have open-source vulnerability scanning and open-source vulnerability management in place, and employ coding and development security best practices. Disconnected teams and development practices can create serious security issues quickly.

How Dynatrace Application Security complements open-source vulnerability scanning tools

Dynatrace's Application Security model provides organizations with more protection for their open-source software. This includes runtime vulnerability detection as part of the Software Intelligence Platform. Unlike traditional security tools, Dynatrace Application Security identifies rich, detailed information, such as which open-source libraries are used in runtime, how they are being used, and the context in which they are used.

Dynatrace Application Security also determines whether the process is exposed to an attack, has connections to "crown jewel" databases, or has the possibility of being vulnerable to various other factors. Dynatrace constantly runs in the background to identify a full range of vulnerabilities and ensure that every gap is sealed. Scanning for security vulnerabilities throughout development, testing, and runtime environments is crucial because this is where software is actively exploitable.

With Dynatrace Application Security, organizations can spend more time creating a plan to prevent and remediate vulnerabilities, rather than wasting time and resources manually sifting and searching for security concerns.

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