Explore Your Codebase With Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools

When developers set about creating applications or software, they generally note down all the requirements. For example, a payment application will need modules to store sensitive credit card data, a payment processing API and a user-friendly interface. However, developing each module from scratch can be time-taking and expensive. So, what do they do? They turn to open-source software that is publicly available to use!

Yet, this opens them up to security, compliance and quality issues. This is where Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools can be their savior! These tools provide a thorough analysis of open-source modules that are being used by a certain application or software. SCA Tools highlight the open-source elements, their vulnerabilities, dependencies, license specifications, etc. so businesses can perform risk and compliance assessments. When businesses are aware of the risks, they can choose to replace the open-source modules or modify the code to address the vulnerabilities.

According to VentureBeat, 97% of applications use open-source code and 90% of companies use it in some way. With open-source code being so prevalent, SCA Tools is a must-have for every developer. In this blog, we explore everything about Software Composition Analysis Tools: their working, evolution, benefits, importance, future and more!
 

Understanding Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools

Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools enable developers and testers to securely deploy open-source packages in their apps, without exposing the organization or the application’s users to vulnerabilities or legal issues. If your application leverages open-source modules, we bet your developers will use SCA Tools to understand the precise risk factors introduced by open-source elements.

After all, open-source components have become highly pervasive in modern software development, with nearly every application using at least one open-source package in its codebase. This allows app developers to move quickly as they can simply use code that is freely available online and is validated by other developers. This not just saves time and expense but leads to quicker time-to-market. However, using open-source code also comes with its own set of risks as their vulnerabilities also become public knowledge. This is why developers need SCA Tools – however, that wasn’t always the case.

Let’s look at how we grew so reliant on SCA Tools.
 

Evolution And Origins Of Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools

 

• 1st Generation (Open-Source Code Scanning)

  In the early 2000s, developers identified code snippets and matched them to open-source code to give businesses insight into the codebase of their applications. Professionals had to manually verify the discovered matches. Code scanning was standard practice for businesses using open-source code and an essential strategy for managing open-source licenses. It was an inefficient solution to find vulnerabilities in code as it took a long time to track the entire code, which increased the software development life cycle (SDLC) and produced a lot of false positives.

• 2nd Generation (Continuous Open-Source Components Management)

  In 2011, WhiteSource (now Mend) unveiled new technologies that complied with emerging agile software development standards. This included tools that were integrated within a variety of software development tools to tag open-source components. Real-time tracking was previously a challenge, caused by the inability to consistently identify open-source components after changes were made to the codebase. However, vulnerabilities in open-source code could be tracked in real-time thanks to these new tools. This made it possible to identify licensing and security problems early on in the development process when they were simpler, cheaper and quicker to fix.

• 3rd Generation (Effective Usage Analysis)

  WhiteSource then introduced a new version of its SCA solution in May 2018. This newly developed tool provided information that went beyond the scope of the application's open-source components. It performed a more thorough analysis of the components used and highlighted how they affected application security and compliance. This resulted in faster fixes for open-source vulnerabilities and improved software analysis.

Well, if you’re wondering if there’s a fourth generation – the answer is at the end of the article! For now, let’s look at how SCA Tools function.
 

How Do Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools Work?

Essentially, SCA Tools inspect packages, manifest files, source code, files, containers and other parts of the codebase to identify the open-source components. The identified open-source code snippets are compiled into a Bill of Materials (BOM), which is then compared against various public databases, such as the National Vulnerability Database (NVD). These databases contain information on known vulnerabilities in open-source code. SCA Tools help in comparing the generated BOMs against online databases to discover if you’re using any commercial licenses within your software code.

As the tool compares the BOM against known databases, it allows developers and security teams to
identify critical security, legal and compliance vulnerabilities. Hence, they can act quickly to fix them before the public launch of the software. Moreover, SCA Tools enable businesses to analyze the overall quality of their code, including version control, history of contributions, modifications, etc. to identify the stage where the vulnerability was introduced. Is there anything more you really need?

However, these are just the major advantages – to understand the entire scope of benefits head on to the next section!
 

What Are The Benefits Of Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools?

SCA Tools are essential because they boost the speed, security and dependability of software development. Due to the vast amount of open-source code being used, manual code tracking is no longer sufficient. SCA Tools are vital as software with open-source codes is becoming more and more common. SCA Tools offer the following benefits:
 

• Identifying Risks And Vulnerabilities

  Since critical applications are only as secure as their weakest component, it is important to understand the risk profile and weak points in any software. Vulnerabilities are usually present in code that developers create using open-source or third-party libraries. Developers can therefore view the application's complete risk profile by scanning the entire codebase in a top-down approach using SCA Tools.

• Composition Analysis And Remediation

  SCA Tools offer security control features that identify open-source or third-party code components (frameworks, plug-ins, libraries, modules, etc.) that significantly reduce the software development time but compromise security. With the aid of SCA Tools, developers can quickly determine which specific libraries are vulnerable and whether those vulnerabilities can be quickly fixed by purchasing a commercial module or package.

• License Management And Utilization

  If developers are using a library or module that has two types of licenses, an unlimited commercial version and a limited free version, SCA Tools enables developers to understand which version they can use for their software. It also helps them understand how many instances are being used, so they can abide by the licensing arrangements.

Although those were just the major benefits, you can bet that SCA Tools is a must-have for software development teams. If you haven’t invested in one yet, don’t wait – they will only get smarter (and more critical) in the future!
 

What’s The Future Of Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools?

In 2020, roughly 75% of enterprises said that open-source is very important or extremely important to them. The business adoption of open source will continue to rise, which brings along inherent risks, especially in the areas of license compliance and vulnerability management. Hence, more organizations will soon embrace Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Tools to address these concerns.

However, SCA Tools will advance to go beyond identifying open-source risk to actually enhancing the quality of your software code. Businesses will demand features that will help them understand where the code comes from and if it has enough adoption or contribution from the open-source community to be considered secure. Moreover, SCA Tools will become more developer friendly as they will be integrated within developer tools and become part of the standard workflow to offer faster detection of issues and speedy remediation.
 

To Sum Up

Well, that was all about SCA Tools! We bet you have learnt all there was about these tools that make them critical in the software development workflow. Every developer relies on open-source code sooner or later which also introduces potential issues. However, with SCA Tools on their side, developers can eliminate the risks before they cause any real damage!