Static Reviewer

Owned by Natalia Moisei
Last updated: Oct 22, 2024 by Laura Mandolini
15 min read

SAST - Static Application Security Testing 

Static Reviewer is the SAST module (Static Analysis Security Testing), part of Security Reviewer suite, built on top of the lessons learned through hundreds of thousands of scans performed since 2001, constantly evolving to match new technologies and threats. It is guided by the largest and most comprehensive set of secure coding rules and supports a wide array of languages, platforms, build environments and integrated development environments (IDEs). Compliant with: OWASP, CWE, SQALE, CISQ, CVE, CVSS, WASC, MISRA, CERT, with DISA, STIG, and NIST references. The Rule Engine with its internal multi-threaded, optimized state machine based on Dynamic Syntax Tree, is the fastest in the market. It does not need any internal or external DBMS to run, and it is fully extensible via XML. Its unique capability to reconstruct an intended layering, makes it an invaluable tool for discovering the architecture of a vulnerability that has been injected in the source code, with very rare cases of False Positives.

 

Static Reviewer and Quality Reviewer, released in the Security Reviewer Suite, are provided both On Premise (Desktop, CI Plugins, Maven / Gradle / SBT / SonarQube Plugins, Ant Task and CLI Interface tested with many CI/CD platforms) and in Cloud (our Web App offered in an high-performance European or American Secured Cloud Infrastructure), as Container (Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift or any other APPC-compliant). Static Reviewer executes code checks according most relevant Secure Coding Standards for commonly used Programming Languages. It offers a unique, full integration between Static Analysis (SAST), Software Composition Analysis and DAST (Dynamic) analysis, directly inside Programmers IDE.

Multi-language scan

Scans uncompiled code and doesn’t require complete builds. Sets the new standard for instilling security into modern development.

An application can be made of different Programming Languages. 

Security Reviewer recognizes all programming languages that are composing the analyzed app, as well as the Dominant Language (i.e. the Language with higher LOC).

 

The analysis will be done automatically, by entering Source Code Path, Application (Product) and Engagement (Version).

Optionally, you can fine tuning the Analysis by setting Analysis Options and Language Options, for example you may set the API Level, SDK, Frameworks for each Programming Language used in your app.

Auditor

Your current username is set to default on Auditor field. You can change this field before scanning.

Audit Date

You can change the Audit Date as you want, selecting the proper date in the calendar.

Exclusion List

You can exclude source files from the analysis, loading a list placed in plain-text file.

Incremental Analysis

You do not have to rescan the  entire code base every time. The incremental scan option will automatically scan only the updated files and their dependencies, reporting both previous and current version issues. A combo box will permit you to choose a previous version for doing the incremental analysis. If a previous version exist, an additional option will be display:

Selecting “New and Changed Files only”, analysis’ results will be focused on new and updated files only.

Load Type

You can choose:

  • Folder. Open a folder containing your source code. This is most useful feature and can scan incomplete, uncompiled source code. When you scan JAVA files, scan is related to HTML, JSP pages, JSF, XML, SQL and JavaScript too; An Open Folder dialog box will appear, please choose the folder where the source code is located. When you scan C/C++ files, you can set Target Platform as well as the Target Compiler, using C/C++ Options Tab settings.

  • Project. Open Visual Studio Project(s). Visual Studio (2003 to 2015) “.??proj” files: C#, C++/CLI or vb.NET with related HTML, asp, aspx pages as well as JavaScript and XML are supported. SR will search all source files referenced by selected projects, listing them in the Files List frame. Be aware of orphaned files.

  • ClassPath. In JAVA, optionally you can have a scan based on “.classpath” files, located in every folder to include, for a faster scan.

  • Component. If you have APM Pack installed, choosing this option Security Reviewer will analyze your application as you structured it using Component Builder.

Ruleset

Choose a Ruleset on related combo box (Security or Deadcode):  OWASP Top Ten 2021, OWASP API Security Top Ten 2019, OWASP Top Ten 2017, OWASP Top Ten 2013, OWASP Top Ten 2010, CWE or your own Custom Ruleset (see related chapter below). If a Mobile app is detected, OWASP Mobile Top Ten 2016 will be automatically set (OWASP Mobile Top Ten 2014 is also available). Dead code analysis will use CWE ruleset only. Further than OWASP and CWE, WASC and CVE will be also detected in every analysis. Additionally, PCI-DSS 4.0 and 3.2.1, CVSS Base Score 3.1 and NIST, DIGA, STIG references are added when applicable.

Scan Options

Additional Scan Options are provided for better targeting the scan:

  • Severity level. You can target the scan to some Severities only.

  • Dead Code / Best Practices. If disabled, the Dead Code and Best Practices Analysis won’t be executed

  • Resilience. If disabled, the Software Resilience Analysis won’t be executed

  • Quality Analysis. If disabled, the Quality Analysis won’t be executed

  • Do not apply Exclusions. Enabling this option, you skip the Exclusion List

  • Send to Dashboard. You can choose if the Analysis Results, Logs and Reports will be send to Team Reviewer

Framework – JDK - API Level

In case of .NET source code, if .NET framework cannot be obtained automatically, you can choose which .NET Framework version has been used during development. The same will be done with JDK, API Level (Android) or MFC versions.

SQL Dialect

If you have SQL scripts in your Application, choose their SQL Dialect

</> Source Code options

You can choose how many lines will be show on the screen and reports Before and After the line on which a violation was find.

Warning Timeout

Set the proper Timeout in seconds to be applied in the pattern search before generating a Warning. For analyzing complex source code, it is suggested to set Warning Timeout to 50 or over.

Trusted

Enable it your application runs in a Trusted environment. You can choose:

  • Public Functions (default). You are considering ‘Trusted’ the public functions parameters (console application, dedicated JVM or CLR, dedicated Application Server, etc.)

  • DB Queries. When results of Data Base Queries have not to be validated

  • Environment Variables-Properties. When Environment Variables and Property Files are considered affordable (Environment dedicated to system user associated to application)

  • Socket. When data read as plaintext from a Socket has not to be validated (i.e. read from a local Daemon)

  • Servlet/WS requests. When Servlet or Web Services requests are considered affordable (for example in case of local servlet or in case of WS-Security)

Apply Exclusion List

If Enabled (default), Exclusion List rules will be applied. If you want to change those rules please refer to related chapter below in this doc.

Max vulnerabilities

In order to reduce the number of vulnerabilities to manage, it is suggested to set Max vulnerabilities per line of code to 1 on the first scan, and then, after some remediation task was accomplished, set it to 5. That permits to be focused on priority code interventions for solving the most important vulnerabilities. If SR will find more vulnerabilities in the same line of code, it will consider the one having higher severity.

.NET Partial Classes

Enabling No Dead Code for Partial Classes avoid to provides a separate processing for .NET Partial Classes, avoid False Positives on Dead Code issues.

Internet

Enable it if you are analyzing an Application exposed to Internet. The rules applied will be more stricted.

Target Browser

If you want to focus your Static Analysis to a specific target browser, select this option. A list of Most important versions of Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari will be shown:

 This will change analysis perspective, focusing on a certain browser vulnerabilities and compatibility issues.

C++ Options

In case of C/C++ source code, you can set C or C++ Options. Further than Windows compilers (Visual Studio, JetBrains Rider and Embarcadero), Security Reviewer supports:

Unix/Linux

Embedded

Security Reviewer supports the largest number of C/C+ compilers in the market. 

COBOL Options

For COBOL applications, you can set:

Target COBOL Version. For a precise parsing of the right COBOL Dialect.

Security Reviewer supports the largest number of COBOL platforms in the market.

Secure Code Analysis

Static Reviewer, can run either at Client side or at Server side. You can run it using our Desktop application, Developer's IDE, via command line or using our DevOps CI/CD plugins. Developers can run Secure Code Analysis also at server side via automated integration with our REST API server. See REST API Hardware Requirements for further details.

In case of a medium-large number of users, DevOps CI/CD integration Plugins are suggested. In that case the Secure Code Analysis will run at server side, either on Jenkins Server or Atlassian Bamboo Server. Developers can browse the analysis results either directly on their preferred IDE or or using an internet browser connected to Team Reviewer. 

Component Builder

Our Component Builder provides association of a group of source Folders or Files to a Component.

Each Component can be associated to a certain APM Code, Package Code, Outsourcer and Development Team:

With Component Builder, you can create components. Each Component must have a different name:

You can Modify and Delete (Ignore) existing Components.

When launching a new Static Analysis, you can set the Load Type to Component.

Results

Once the Static Analysis is finished, you can view Results associated to one Component, or to ALL Components:

False Positives

You can mark all Component's Vulnerabilities as False Positives, by selecting the Component and pressing Select All:

otherwise you can select single vulnerabilities or a group of them, by pressing CTRL or SHIFT keys.

The vulnerabilities will be marked with FP=Yes. and the Status will be set to Not An Issue.

You can Suppress (Ignore) ex-post one or more Components:

The Suppress is incremental, you can add new suppressions as you want.

In the next Static Analysis, in a new Application/Version, you can import the Exclusion List text file including all suppressions. 

Reporting

Security Reviewer Suite provides a complete reporting system.

It provides Compliance Reports about:

  • Security Analysis Report

  • Dead Code and Best Practices Report

  • Software Resilience Report

  • Quality Metrics Report

  • SQALE Report

Cover letters are customizable, for ISO 9001 compliance. You can insert two logos, the ISO Responsability chain (Created by, Approved by, Verified By), ISO Template code, a Disclaimer note and Report Confidentiality.

The reports are designed for maximum optimization, for obtaining as small as page number possible.

Custom Rules - Admin Kit

The Security Reviewer Admin Kit allows to add Custom Rules to be executed during the Static Analysis (Security or Dead Code - Best Practices) as well as to change some aspects of Static Analysis Reports. 

This can be done in three steps:

  • Limit access to a single or a group of Static Reviewer features

  • Change Rules priority (Severity)

  • Add suggestions to reduce recurring False Positives by Evidence

  • Add a new Rule to the Static Reviewer’s Rules XML File 

  • Add a Report File for replacing an existing one.

We decide to give a limited access to our Admin Kit, reserved to Certified Users. A typical User can only select group of existing rules to be applied in a specific analysis, or to all analyses.

A Certified User, once purchased the Admin Kit, will receive a 1-day training by us, concerning how to design a Custom Rule properly.

Personnel using this Admin Kit should have the following Professional Profile:

  • At least 3 year of experience on using Security Reviewer as Auditor. At least 100 Audits per year are required

  • At least 5 years of experience in Secure Coding with Microsoft®NET

  • In-depth knowledge of OWASP and CWE Compliance standards, and CVSS Risk methodology, all applied to at least 5 programming languages

  • At least 5 years of experience in executing Static Analyses compliant with OWASP Top Ten 2013 or 2017, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) 2.9 or newer, Web Application Security Consortium (WASC) and PCI-DSS 3.1 or newer

  • Developing at least 3 projects for each of 5 different programming languages, during the last 5 years

  • “Security Reviewer Certified Professional – Master Rule Programming” Certified

You can Enable/Disable and change Severity of existing Vulnerability Detection Rules (authorized users only):

You can create your Custom Rules (authorized users only):

Once you created your own Rules, you must submit them all to us, using the Send button.

You can decide either to share your Custom Rules with the Community, or to reserve those Custom Rules to your company only.

You can declare Recurring False Positives by Evidence (authorized users only):

DevOps CI/CD Integration 

Jenkins and Bamboo Plugins are part of Security Reviewer Suite.

Jenkins and Bamboo Plugins rely on user's infrastructure to run and support the respective platforms.

Using built-in design 9000+ validation rules, during Code Review process it can highlight violations and even suggest changes that would improve the structure of the system. it creates an abstract representation of the program, based on Dynamic Syntax Tree own patented algorithm.

CI/CD Platforms Integrations

Cloud Platforms supported (CI Plugins):

SCM Integrations

You can directly checkout (push) source code from the following SCM platforms:

The source code will be stored temporary in an encrypted folder and loaded in a secure buffer.

Analysis Results can be stored in the above SCM platforms.

You can do that using our Jenkins plugin or directly from our Desktop app.

File Servers

All our products can work accessing files on local file system, as well as the following File Sharing Systems:

  • Network File System (NFS)

  • Samba

  • FTP, TFTP, SFTP, FTP-S

  • UNC Paths

  • Permalinks

Relational Databases

Static Reviewer does not need RBDMS to run, and it is fully extensible via XML. It is able to analyze SQL code written on different SQL Dialects.

Our unified Dashboard, named Team Reviewer supports (configurable) the following RDBMS:

  • Oracle MySQL 5.6 or higher

  • Oracle Database RAC 12 or newer (includes Oracle APEX)

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2012 or newer

  • PostgreSQL 9.0 and higher

  • Alpine H2 1.4.196 or newer

  • MariaDB 10.x

Logging

Every operation made by Security Reviewer's products is logged according ISO 27002 chapter 12.4, in different formats:

The above logs are customizable according the customer needs.

Supported Programming Languages

Static Analysis supports the following programming languages:

C#, Vb.NET, VB6, ASP, ASPX, Java, JSP, JavaScript (client side & server side), TypeScript, Java Server Faces, Ruby, Python, R, GO, Clojure, Groovy, PowerShell, Rust, HTML5, XML, XPath, C, C++ (see C/C++ Options), ESQL/C, PRO*C, PHP, SCALA,, IBM Streams Processing Language, Shell (bash, sh, csh, ksh), Perl, Julia, LUA, COBOL (see COBOL Options), JCL, PL/I, ABAP, SAP-HANA, Adabas NATURAL, Terraform, Dyalog and GNU APL, CloudFormation, Ansible Tasks, github Actions, Dockerfile, Kubernetes, DTSX, RDL, RDLS, Oracle BPEL and BPMN.

Mobile: Android Java, Android C++ SDK, Kotlin, Objective-C, Objective C++, Swift (including templates). Support for 47 Mobile Development Frameworks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_app_development

SQL Dialects: PL/SQL, T/SQL, U-SQL, Teradata SQL, SAS-SQL, Adabas SQL, IBM Datastage, ANSI SQL, IBM DB2, IBM Informix, IBM Netezza, SAP Sybase, Micro Focus Vertica, MySQL, FireBird, PostGreSQL, SQLite, Hibernate Query Language, Hadoop PL, HiveQL, CockroachDB, ADABAS, NonStopSQL, BigQuery.

NoSQL. MongoDB, CouchDB, Azure Cosmos DB, basho, CouchBase, Scalaris, Neo4j, InfiniSpan, Hazelcast, Apache Hbase, Dynomite, Hypertable, cloudata, HPCC, Stratosphere, Amazon DynamoDB, Oracle NoSQL, Datastax, ElasticDB, OrientDB, MarkLogic, RaptorDB, Microsoft HDInsight, Intersystems, RedHat JBoss DataGrid, IBM Netezza, InfiniDB, BigMemory, GemFire., Accumulo GigaSpaces, SAP Hana, Couldera, memBase, simpleDB, Apache Cassandra, GraphQL.

Mobile DB. SQLite, eXtremeDB, FireBase, Cognito, Core Data, Couchbase Mobile, Perst, UnQlite, LevelDB, BerkeleyDB, Realm Mobile, ForestDB, Interbase, Snappy, SQLAnywhere.

Low Code: Appian BPM and SAIL, ServiceNow Client-Side/Server-Side/Glide/Business Rules/Jelly, UIPath RPA, Microsoft Flows and PowerApps, Oracle Application Express (APEX), Siebel eScript, Svelte, Camunda, Salesforce APEX, BMC-EngageOne Enrichment (formerly Pitney Bowes StreamWeaver).  

Integration Platforms: TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks, BMC Control-M

Containers: Dockerfile Security vulnerabilities and Best Practices, Kubernetes misconfigurations, Ansible Tasks

Cloud: Terraform, CloudFormation, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Amazon AWS, Oracle Cloud OCP, CloudStack, OpenStack, DigitalOcean

Supported Libraries and Frameworks (Static Analysis): 

JAVA: 146 Frameworks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_Frameworks

C: 69 Libraries

http://en.cppreference.com/w/c/links/libs

C++: 231 Libraries

http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/links/libs

Python: All Python Package Index frameworks

https://pypi.python.org/pypi

C#: 58 Frameworks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_.NET_libraries_and_frameworks

VB.NET: 58 Frameworks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_.NET_libraries_and_frameworks

.NET Open Source Developer Projects

https://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet/blob/master/dotnet-developer-projects.md

Scala: 52 Frameworks (Accord, Akka, AnalogWeb, argonaut, Avro4s, Binding.scala, Chaos, Chill, Circe, Colossus, Dupin, Finagle, Finatra, form-binder, fs2, Gatling, Https4s, json4s, Kafka, Korolev, Lagom, Lift, MacWire, Monix, Monkeytail, MoultingYML, mPickle, Octopus, Pickling, Play, RxScala,  Scalatra, ScalaCheck, scala-oauth2-provider, Scala-CSV, SecureSocial, ScalaPB, Scala.Rx, Scalaz, scodec, scrimage, Scrooge, Skinny, Spark,, Spray, spray-json, sttp, Udash, Veto, Widok, Xitrum, youi)

PHP: 35 Frameworks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_frameworks#PHP plus Smarty, ESAPI, Wordpress, Magento, TWIG, Aura, Drupal, TYPO3, Simple MVC, Slim, Yii2, PHPixie, celestini, SeedDMS.

JavaScript: 58 Frameworks (activeJS, Agility, Alpaca, Amplify, Angles, angular.js, AnnYang, Backbone.js, batman, bootstrap, CANjs, cappuccino, choco, conditioner, connect, Cordova-Phonegap, cycle.js, D3, Dojo Toolkit, dopamine, eyeballs, EMBER, Epistrome, ExtJS, Express, Famo.us, feathers, Flutter for React, GIFjs, GridForm, Hapi, introJS, Ionic, joint, JQuery, jwaves, jReject, KendoUI, KnockOut, Koa, Kraken, Locomotive, maria, meteor, MidWay, mochiKit, MooTools, NestJS, NextJS, node.js, OpenUI5, Parallax, PlastronJS, Polymer, qooxdoo, qUnit, React, RequireJS, Sails, sammy, Socket.IO, script.aculo, serenade, snack, SnapSvg, somajs, sproutcore, stapes, SVG, togetherJS, UIZE, underscore, vue, YUI3)

TypeScript: 14 Frameworks  (Angular, Express, Flutter for React, Ionic, Loopback, Meteor, NativeScript, Nest, Next, plottable, React, Redux, Stencil, WebPack)

Kotlin: 17 Mobile Frameworks (Anko, ararat, blue-falcon, CodenameOne, Flutter for Android, Ionic, kotgo, kotlin-core, Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile, Kotson, Lychee, NativeScript, React Native, rx-mvi, Splitties, themis, Xamarin), 10 Web Frameworks (HexaGon, Javalin, Jooby, Ktor, Kweb, Spark, Spring Boot, Tekniq, Vaadin-On-Kotlin, Vert.x for Kotlin)

Ruby: 25 Frameworks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_frameworks#Ruby plus Cuba, Grape, Hobo, Ramaze, Raptor, pakyow, Renee, Rango, Scorched, Lattice, Vanilla, Harbor, Salad, Espresso, Marley, Bats, Streika, Gin, JRuby.

Go: 19 Frameworks (Beego, Buffalo, Echo, FastHTTP, Fiber, Gin/Gin-Gonic, Gocraft, Goji, Gorilla, Go-zero, Iris, Kit, Kratos, Mango, Martini, Mux (HttpRouter), Net/HTTP, Revel, Web.go)

Julia: 34 frameworks. Pluto, Flux, IJulia, DifferentialEquations, Genie, Makie, JuMP, Gadfly, Gen, Plots, DataFrames, MLJ, Knet, Zygote, UnicodePlots, Mocha, BeautifulAlgorithms, ModelingToolkit, Symbolics, AlphaZero, Revise, Distributions, Dash-bootstrap-components, CUDA, Optim, BrainFlow, TensorFlow, Franklin, DSGE, Yao, Oceananigans, ForwardDiff, DiffEqFlux, Javis

Machine Learning

Security Reviewer service uses machine learning algorithms to feed off the hundreds of millions of anonymous audit decisions from Security Reviewer experts. These decision models are actively used and developed for Cloud Reviewer, but are also technologies that can be automatically applied on-prem to Static Reviewer results.

Static Reviewer analysis is divided in two steps:

  • Hybrid Analysis: Security Reviewer creates an in-memory Dynamic Syntax Tree of analized app, mixing Static (on source code) and Sandboxed Analysis (on compiled code)

  • Taint Analysis: Security Reviewer contains its own Machine Learning system that acts on the output of the Hybrid analyzer, that is the  in-memory Dynamic Syntax Tree. 

Let's start with some definitions:

Features: Features in a Naive Bayes Classifier, or any general ML Classification Algorithm, are the data points we choose to define our input. Specifically, in a Naive Bayes Classifier, the key assumption we make is that these features are independent (they don't affect each other). This assumption may or not be true, but for a Naive Bayes, we assume that it is true. 

Parameters: Parameters in Naive Bayes are the estimates of the true distribution of whatever we're trying to classify. The variables your algorithm is trying to tune to build an accurate model..

Classifier: Classifiers are also referred to group of attributes. .

Security Reviewer Machine Learning is based on:

Feature mapping derives simple-structured features from the Dynamic Syntax Tree, and create specifc Classifiers.
In the Static Analysis, Features are a huge number of objects that cannot be learned one-by-one. A given Classifier is abstracted as a set of features:

All analyses but the first will automatically remove the useless Classifiers, enahncing the scan accuracy.

Forget about False Positives

The two above mentioned steps guarantee a cleansed analysis output, with almost zero False Positives.

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