Enterprise
Software Composition Analysis
Designed for Devs.

Software Composition Analysis (SCA) is the automated, continuous identification and review of open source and third-party libraries in a codebase. SCA scans and analyzes open source components for known security vulnerabilities and license compliance issues to ensure the integrity and security of code and to protect the software supply chain.

By understanding these aspects of code, developers can build more secure and reliable software.

SCA software is a critical tool for CISOs, compliance teams, and security managers. These roles rely on SCA software to manage and secure their organization's use of open-source components.

Here is how they use SCA software:

• Vulnerability Detection and Prioritization: SCA software automatically scans and analyzes open source and third-party libraries for known security vulnerabilities and license issues. It helps security managers identify vulnerabilities in both direct and transitive dependencies. The software then prioritizes these issues based on context like reachability and exploitability, allowing teams to focus on the highest-risk vulnerabilities that could have the biggest business impact.
• Ensuring Compliance: Compliance teams use SCA software to ensure that all open-source components are used in accordance with their licenses, helping to prevent legal risks. The software can also automatically generate a complete Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) in formats like SPDX or CycloneDX, which is essential for demonstrating due diligence and meeting regulatory requirements.
• Risk Management: For CISOs, SCA software provides essential visibility into the software supply chain. It helps to catch and fix risks early, before code reaches production, thereby reducing remediation time and enhancing the overall security posture. By providing insights into dependencies and version management, the SCA software helps in making informed decisions and effectively managing technical debt.

Enterprise software composition analysis is essential because modern applications rely heavily on open source components and the vulnerabilities in those packages often pose the biggest risk. Without visibility into third-party dependencies, it’s easy to miss known CVEs, license issues, and outdated libraries.

SCA enables teams to catch and fix these risks early, before code reaches production. When enabled, it can:

• Detect vulnerabilities in direct and transitive dependencies
• Catch license violations before they become legal risks
• Prioritize issues with context like reachability and fixability
• Reduce remediation time by surfacing issues in developer workflows
• Enforce policies across code, builds, and pipelines

While both are tools used to identify vulnerabilities, SCA software and traditional vulnerability scanners focus on different aspects of a codebase and IT environment. The term "traditional vulnerability scanner" can refer to several types of tools, most commonly network or infrastructure scanners, which are different from SAST (Static Application Security Testing) tools.

• SCA Software: This is designed to specifically scan and manage risks related to open-source components and third-party libraries within your application's code. It identifies known vulnerabilities (CVEs) and license compliance issues in these dependencies.
• Traditional Vulnerability Scanners (Network & Infrastructure): These tools scan the broader IT environment from the outside, like an attacker would. They look for vulnerabilities in networks, servers, and other hosts, such as misconfigurations, unpatched software, and open ports. They do not analyze the application's code itself.
• Static Application Security Testing (SAST): SAST is another type of vulnerability scanner that is often part of a comprehensive security program. Unlike SCA, SAST tools analyze your proprietary source code to find coding flaws like SQL injection or cross-site scripting (XSS) before the application is even run.

To get a complete security picture, many organizations use all three types of tools. SCA handles the open-source component risks, SAST finds vulnerabilities in your custom code, and traditional network scanners address risks in the underlying infrastructure.

97% of commercial codebases use open source libraries, components, and dependencies. While open source fuels innovation and accelerates development cycles, it also introduces risk.

• Open source projects often suffer from inconsistent maintenance, resulting in delayed security patches and updates
• Vulnerabilities are publicly disclosed and, therefore, easy to exploit
• Attackers can use one vulnerability to exploit a number of companies — as many as are using that particular library or component
• Vulnerable components can be used to execute software supply chain attacks

SCA tools scan your codebase to identify open source components and assess them for risk. This involves four key steps:

1. Component Identification: Software composition analysis tools scan software projects to inventory all components using manifest scanning and binary scanning.
2. License Compliance: Open-source SCA security software assesses licenses of identified components to ensure compliance and avoid legal issues.
3. Vulnerability Detection: SCA software cross-references components against vulnerability databases to identify known vulnerabilities and assess their severity through tools like risk scoring
4. Prioritization and Remediation: Top SCA tools prioritize vulnerabilities based on reachability and exploitability, offering remediation advice and integrating with issue-tracking systems to streamline the process.

Enterprise software composition analysis solutions help organizations identify publicly disclosed vulnerabilities before they become critical breaches. This translates to better products, a more secure supply chain, happier customers, and improved developer experience.

Other benefits of SCA software include:

Enhanced Security Posture: SCA code scanning enables organizations to proactively identify and address vulnerabilities in their software supply chains, preventing costly security breaches and safeguarding sensitive data.

Regulatory Compliance: Software composition analysis and security ensures compliance with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS by tracking third-party components, verifying licensing, and demonstrating due diligence in data protection, facilitated by accurate SBOMs.

Assured Quality and Reliability: SCA upholds trust by ensuring software quality and reliability, thereby protecting sensitive customer data and delivering seamless user experiences.

Streamlined Development Processes: Code scanning software automates dependency management, integrates with developer workflows, and enhances productivity, accelerating time-to-market while balancing speed, innovation, and security.

Empowerment Through Insights: An SCA scan provides insights for informed decision-making on dependencies, version management, and vulnerability remediation, empowering developers to mitigate technical debt and foster continuous improvement.

Enterprise Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools are a core component of modern DevSecOps, shifting security left to embed it directly within the development workflow. This helps teams:

• Move faster with less risk. By integrating continuous scanning into the pipeline, SCA tools catch and remediate open-source vulnerabilities early, preventing costly issues from reaching production.
• Empower developers. Tools provide developers with the context needed to quickly fix issues without leaving their workflow, using features like automated fixes and risk-based prioritization to reduce noise.
• Secure the supply chain. SCA ensures a complete and up-to-date Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) and provides continuous visibility into open-source dependencies, which is crucial for compliance and risk management.

Enterprises rely on SCA software for compliance and risk management to gain control and visibility over their open-source dependencies. It helps them:

• Proactively manage risk by identifying and prioritizing vulnerabilities based on real-world impact, allowing teams to address the most critical threats first.
• Ensure legal compliance by continuously scanning for and flagging open-source license violations before they become costly legal issues.
• Establish a single source of truth with an up-to-date Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), which is essential for audit trails, security management, and providing complete visibility into their software supply chain.

The best SCA tools go beyond simple detection. They help you prioritize, fix, and enforce security at scale. Look for a solution that integrates into your workflows and reduces noise with actionable insights.

What to look for:

• Accurate detection of direct and transitive dependencies
• AI-powered risk-based prioritization
• Seamless integration into dev tools and pipelines
• License compliance and policy enforcement
• Scans across code, builds, containers, and cloud
• Consolidation with other AppSec tools to reduce sprawl

Check out Cycode’s SCA Buyer’s Guide for a more detailed breakdown of features, questions to ask, and how to evaluate the top-rated SCA tools for software supply chains.