Now that we’ve covered the essentials of what SCA does and how to use it, let’s discuss the crucial capabilities that a modern SCA solution should deliver.

#1. Third-party library resolution and accurate SBOM generation

To detect vulnerabilities and provide essential insight for mitigating them, SCA tools must be able to identify the dependency call tree of third-party libraries that an application’s source code references, and then generate a detailed inventory of application components based on it.

A dependency call tree represents all dependencies that are introduced when an application runs. Since some libraries may have their own dependencies, configuring an application to depend on a given library could result in the incorporation of additional dependencies beyond those that are directly referenced in an application’s dependency inventory. To cover all potential risks, SCA tools must be able to discover these indirect dependencies and include them in the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) that they generate for the app.

#2. Known vulnerability detection

SCA tools should provide accurate detection of publicly known vulnerabilities that impact third-party libraries or other dependencies used by an application. Since attackers can easily identify these vulnerabilities by searching public databases, it’s critical to catch them before threat actors attempt to exploit them.

#3. Malware detection

In addition to reporting legitimate components of an application that are impacted by a known vulnerability, SCA software should identify suspicious packages and actual malicious packages.

For example, imagine that attackers fork an open source library and inject malicious code into it, and that developers unwittingly create a dependency based on the forked version of the library instead of the standard one. A good SCA tool would be able to detect that the application is using an unusual version of the library, alerting developers to the security risk.

#4. Licensing compliance

Software Composition Analysis tools should also be capable of detecting instances where an application uses open source code in a way that violates open source licenses.

This is important because most open source code is governed by licenses that restrict how it can be used or reused. For example, if developers modify code licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and use it within an application, they must make their modified version of the code publicly available in most cases.

However, if developers include open source code in an application without tracking which licenses govern it, they may inadvertently release or deploy the application in a way that violates the code’s licenses – leaving the organization liable for copyright infringement.

 SCA tools can address this risk by identifying which open source licenses govern the code included in an application, allowing developers to understand the licensing terms they need to abide by.

#5. Multiple language support and integrations

There are hundreds of programming languages in existence, and developers can opt to write applications in any of them. For that reason, SCA software should be able to detect open source vulnerabilities across a wide variety of languages in order to maximize the versatility of the tools and the breadth of the risks they cover.

 In addition, SCA tools should integrate seamlessly with a variety of development tools and environments. This also optimizes versatility and ensures that teams can address security risks no matter where or how they build their applications.

#6. Guided risk management

The best SCA tools don’t just report vulnerabilities. They also guide security engineers and developers on triaging and remediating risks.

For example, SCA tools that identify exploitable paths can help developers home in on the specific methods within their codebase that are vulnerable to exploits associated with open source code. This allows security teams to narrow down the list of risks found in their projects and focus on the ones that have the highest potential of actually being exploited. This also allows developers to fix the issue as quickly as possible. Similarly, SCA software that prioritizes vulnerabilities based on risk level can help teams determine which issues to address first.