How Can Your Business Benefit From a Software Composition Analysis Solution?

Until a few years ago, IT departments in companies had to handle the software vulnerabilities using manual methods. However, in the current age, the landscape of digital security has changed drastically. It has made the job of IT departments harder, so they have diversified their responsibility with the use of automated solutions.

In the present development world, software composition analysis can help your IT departments safeguard the company from digital threats. They can ensure that each component of the coding is consistent with your business policies. Software composition analysis solutions scan your company's digital coding ecosystems to determine the presence of any vulnerable areas, security threats, and licensing problems.

Most businesses have adopted the agile methodology for their DevOps teams. However, that ends up putting a lot of pressure on them as well as the CI/CD teams. Since these teams need to create software and applications as fast as possible, they tend to rely on open source components to speed up the process.

That way, programmers do not have to write the codes from scratch and can save time with the use of OSS as a framework or templates. It has created a huge demand for open-source codes in the software industry. However, since the codes are open to all, any programmer can access them.

Novice programmers might create vulnerabilities by mistake, while cybercriminals can alter them with malicious intent. Some of these vulnerabilities might not pose a threat to your business, but others may prove extremely harmful. Therefore in this article, we are going to discuss how your business can benefit from using a software composition analysis tool.

Automated Solution to Track Vulnerable Components

It is not humanly possible to keep track of all the vulnerable areas that a hacker can exploit to get access to your system. Therefore many programmers are left blind to the weak areas in their coding, especially when using open-source software. A lot of coders might also forget to apply security patches even after the threats get discovered.

A software composition analysis solution can help your programmers detect any vulnerable areas automatically on the codebase. The analysis tool will provide them a detailed report about the insecure parts of the open-source software they are using. It also gives them information on the affiliated licenses so that the coders can cross-check that and ensure that they follow your company's business policies.

Ongoing Monitoring to Detect Threats

In the present world of development, scanning the codes once for security threats is not going to be a full-proof solution. Static scanning might prove useful to scan the codes before the software gets released in the market. However, once the codes are released, they are vulnerable to several security threats. Applications these days require constant updates, which makes them susceptible to hacking and other risks.

A software composition analysis solution will allow you to monitor your codes continually, even after you have released them in the open digital market. You can set pre-configured triggers so that the security composition analysis solution sends you regular alerts. It will allow your programmers to keep an eye on the coding always.

Automatic Management of Threats

A software composition analysis does not only detect the threats for your programmers. It also provides automated risk management tools that can take care of the entire pipeline, including detection, reporting, prioritizing, and remedying the security problem. These solutions are available for all kinds of platforms, including cloud-based.

It will help your programmers to reduce the number of false positives because they will be able to set up the automatic prioritization of security risks. The analysis solution will send real-time alerts to the coders along with suggestions to rectify the problem. It also allows you to integrate your systems so that managers can assign any coder to solve the problem.

Licensing Risk Management

Every digital program except public domain software is subject to copyright laws in the United States. Many types of software licenses grant different usage rights. Software licenses are meant to protect all the parties involved, including the owners, creators, and users.

However, sometimes it becomes difficult to track the license type because there are more than 200 kinds of open source licenses that grant different rights to the creators and users of the software. Violation of the OSS rights can have due consequences and can cost your business thousands of dollars. Software composition analysis solutions can help you monitor these licensees automatically.

You can set the licensing policies that you are looking for so that the solution can tell you if the software meets your requirements. It will also alert you if there is a license related issue with the use of open-source codes.