What is software composition analysis?
Software composition analysis (SCA) is the automated process of identifying and cataloging all open-source and third-party components within your software applications. SCA tools scan codebases, container images, and build artifacts to create a comprehensive inventory of dependencies, libraries, and frameworks your applications rely on, effectively creating a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) – a formal record of components and their supply chain relationships.
This visibility is essential because modern applications typically contain more third-party code than original code. SCA tools analyze these components against vulnerability databases, license requirements, and security policies to identify risks before they reach production environments.
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How software composition analysis works
SCA tools operate through automated scanning and database correlation to identify security and compliance risks in your software dependencies. The process involves three core steps that work together to provide comprehensive visibility.
Discovery phase: SCA scanners analyze your codebase, build files, container images, and package manifests to identify all third-party components. This includes direct dependencies you explicitly added and transitive dependencies that come bundled with those components.
Analysis phase: Identified components are cross-referenced against multiple vulnerability databases, including the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) – the U.S. government repository of standards-based vulnerability data – vendor-specific advisories, and proprietary threat intelligence feeds. The tools also check component licenses against your organization's compliance requirements.
Reporting phase: Results are prioritized based on severity, exploitability, and your specific environment context. Modern SCA tools integrate with development workflows to provide actionable remediation guidance directly within your existing tools and processes.
Key benefits of OSS SCA tools
Security vulnerability detection: By identifying known vulnerabilities in open-source components, OSS SCA tools reduce the likelihood of security incidents..
License compliance: Open-source software SCA solutions are vital for ensuring compliance with relevant licenses across all open-source components, helping organizations mitigate legal and operational risks.
Risk management: OSS SCA tools provide critical insights into the overall risk profile of an application's software composition. By identifying vulnerabilities and compliance issues, these tools enable proactive risk management, helping organizations address potential threats earlier and support a more secure software development lifecycle.
Automation and efficiency: Automating the process of identifying and managing open-source risks saves time and resources, streamlining workflows and reducing the manual effort required. This efficiency both speeds up the development process and helps organizations respond swiftly to potential vulnerabilities and compliance issues.
Integration with CI/CD pipelines: OSS SCA tools integrate with continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, enabling end-to-end monitoring and compliance. With CI/CD integration, teams are alerted to vulnerabilities in third-party components early, allowing them to patch or update dependencies before any security issues reach production.
Dependency updates: Many OSS SCA tools automatically track and update outdated libraries, a critical function given that one analysis found 85% of audited codebases contained open-source software that had not been updated in over four years. This ensures projects stay up-to-date with the latest versions to reduce technical debt and security risk.
CI/CD Pipeline Security Best Practices [Cheat Sheet]
In this 13 page cheat sheet we'll cover best practices in the following areas of the CI/CD pipeline: Infrastructure security, code security, secrets management, access and authentication, monitoring and response.
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5 OSS software composition analysis tools
1. OWASP Dependency-Check
OWASP Dependency-Check detects known vulnerabilities in project dependencies across multiple package managers and languages. It provides detailed reports and supports CI/CD integrations such as Jenkins and GitLab CI.Aligned with OWASP standards, it’s a trusted solution among developers and security teams for its strong community backing and adherence to industry best practices. Dependency-Check not only identifies known vulnerabilities but also provides detailed remediation guidance through its comprehensive vulnerability reports.
With access to an extensive vulnerability database, it integrates with commonly used CI/CD tools like Jenkins and GitLab CI. Available as a command-line tool or as a build script integration, Dependency-Check is a flexible and reliable way to secure open-source components throughout the development process.
2. Retire.Js
Retire.js is a security composition analysis tool designed to scan JavaScript codebases (including both frontend and backend applications) for known vulnerabilities in third-party libraries. By identifying outdated or insecure dependencies, Retire.js helps developers mitigate security risks early in the development cycle. Its simple command-line interface and integration with CI/CD pipelines make it easy to automate vulnerability detection, ensuring that libraries are up-to-date and secure.
In addition to its core functionality, Retire.js also provides a browser extension for client-side vulnerability detection, allowing security testers to analyze websites for insecure JavaScript libraries directly from the browser. It continuously updates its vulnerability database from sources like the CVE list, ensuring it identifies the latest security threats.
Retire.js focuses on JavaScript libraries; organizations often pair it with other tools for multi-language coverage.
3. ScanCode
ScanCode is an open-source tool that specializes in analyzing the licensing, copyright, and vulnerability information of codebases and their dependencies. Designed to provide comprehensive details about software composition, it scans source code and binaries to detect licenses, extract copyright notices, and identify vulnerabilities in open-source components.
One of its standout features is its ability to perform detailed license compliance checks, ensuring that developers are aware of any legal obligations associated with the libraries they use. ScanCode supports a wide range of programming languages and package formats, making it a versatile solution for developers managing large, multi-language projects.
Beyond vulnerability detection, ScanCode’s modular architecture allows users to customize the tool for specific use cases, and it integrates with CI/CD pipelines to automate scanning.
4. Syft
Syft is an open-source CLI tool and Go library for generating software bills of materials (SBOMs) for container images and filesystems. It identifies packages, libraries, and dependencies across a wide range of ecosystems, helping teams understand their software composition with high precision. Syft supports multiple SBOM formats, including CycloneDX and SPDX, making it useful for compliance, inventory management, and security workflows.
Its integration with CI/CD pipelines allows SBOM generation to be automated as part of the build process. Syft can also be paired with other tools—such as Grype—for vulnerability scanning, enabling a layered approach to open-source risk management.
5. Grype
Grype is an open-source vulnerability scanner that effectively functions as a lightweight SCA tool for open-source components, containers, and OS packages. Built by Anchore, it detects known vulnerabilities across a wide range of ecosystems—including container images, Linux distributions, and application dependencies—by mapping them against multiple public vulnerability feeds.
Grype works especially well when paired with Syft, its companion SBOM generator. Together, they provide a clear view of what’s in your software and the risks associated with each component. Grype integrates easily into CI/CD pipelines, local development workflows, and container registries, enabling continuous scanning throughout the build and deployment process.
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Wiz's approach to SCA
Open-source SCA tools provide essential dependency visibility for modern development teams. They help identify vulnerable components early in the development cycle and maintain compliance with license requirements across your software portfolio. The widespread exposure of secrets – with Wiz Research finding that 61% of organizations have secrets exposed in public repositories – makes credential scanning a critical complement to traditional SCA practices.
The key advantage of open-source tools lies in their flexibility and cost-effectiveness for teams with strong DevOps capabilities. Organizations can customize these tools to fit specific workflows and integrate them seamlessly with existing CI/CD pipelines without vendor lock-in concerns.
The challenge most teams face is understanding which SCA findings actually matter in their production environment. A vulnerability in a dependency might seem critical in isolation, but becomes less urgent if that component isn't exposed to external traffic or doesn't have access to sensitive data. That's where Wiz Code serves as a powerful complement to existing OSS tooling. By mapping open-source and transitive dependencies to their real exposure paths in your cloud environment, Wiz helps teams understand which issues truly matter and how they relate to identities, misconfigurations, runtime behavior, and data access.
Wiz Code fits naturally alongside the OSS ecosystem by providing:
Code-to-cloud mapping that enriches SCA results with cloud context
SBOM generation and analysis to support supply chain transparency
IaC, container, and pipeline scanning to secure every stage of development
Runtime-aware risk prioritization through the Wiz Runtime Sensor
Seamless CI/CD integration to enhance existing developer workflows
Together, OSS SCA tools and Wiz Code give teams the full picture: strong dependency hygiene and the cloud context needed to understand which risks are exploitable, how they propagate, and how to remediate them quickly.
Want to see for yourself how Wiz can protect everything you build and run in the cloud? Schedule a demo today.
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