OWASP Dependency Check

The OWASP Top 10 2013 contains a new entry: A9 - Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Dependency-check can currently be used to scan Java applications (and their dependent libraries) to identify any known vulnerable components.

The problem with using known vulnerable components was described very well in a paper by Jeff Williams and Arshan Dabirsiaghi titled, "The Unfortunate Reality of Insecure Libraries". The gist of the paper is that we as a development community include third party libraries in our applications that contain well known published vulnerabilities (such as those at the National Vulnerability Database).

Currently, dependency-check is (java) command line tool that scans directories and files. If it contains an Analyzer that can scan a particular file type then information from the file is collected. This information is then used to identify the Common Platform Enumeration (CPE). If a CPE is identified a listing of associated Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE) entries are listed in a report.

Dependency-check automatically updates itself using the NVD Data Feeds hosted by NIST. IMPORTANT NOTE: The initial download of the data may take ten minutes or more, if you run the tool at least once every seven days only a small XML file needs to be downloaded to keep the local copy of the data current.

More information about dependency-check can be found on the github dependency-check site.

• Project About
• Main
• Acknowledgements
• Road Map and Getting Involved

OWASP Dependency-Check Dependency-Check is a software composition analysis utility that identifies project dependencies and checks if there are any known, publicly disclosed, vulnerabilities. Currently, Java and .NET are supported; additional experimental support has been added for Ruby, Node.js, Python, and limited support for C/C++ build systems (autoconf and cmake). The tool can be part of a solution to the OWASP Top 10 2017 A9-Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities previously known as OWASP Top 10 2013 A9-Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Introduction The OWASP Top 10 2013 contains a new entry: A9-Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Dependency Check can currently be used to scan applications (and their dependent libraries) to identify any known vulnerable components. The problem with using known vulnerable components was described very well in a paper by Jeff Williams and Arshan Dabirsiaghi titled, "Unfortunate Reality of Insecure Libraries". The gist of the paper is that we as a development community include third party libraries in our applications that contain well known published vulnerabilities (such as those at the National Vulnerability Database). Dependency-check has a command line interface, a Maven plugin, an Ant task, and a Jenkins plugin. The core engine contains a series of analyzers that inspect the project dependencies, collect pieces of information about the dependencies (referred to as evidence within the tool). The evidence is then used to identify the Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) for the given dependency. If a CPE is identified, a listing of associated Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE) entries are listed in a report. Dependency-check automatically updates itself using the NVD Data Feeds hosted by NIST. IMPORTANT NOTE: The initial download of the data may take ten minutes or more. If you run the tool at least once every seven days, only a small JSON file needs to be downloaded to keep the local copy of the data current.

Quick Download Version 5.3.0 Command Line Ant Task Maven Plugin Gradle Plugin Mac Homebrew: brew update && brew install dependency-check Other Plugins Jenkins Plugin sbt Plugin lein-dependency-check Integrations SonarQube Plugin Circle CI Orb Links github gradle source sbt source jenkins source Ohloh Bintray Documentation Documentation (on GitHub) Mailing List Subscribe Post Archived Posts Presentation dependency-check (PDF) dependency-check (PPTX) Classifications

Volunteers

Dependency-Check is developed by a team of volunteers. The primary contributors to date have been:

• Jeremy Long
• Steve Springett
• Will Stranathan

As of March 2015, the top priorities are:

• Resolving all open github issues/feature requests

Involvement in the development and promotion of dependency-check is actively encouraged! You do not have to be a security expert in order to contribute. How you can help:

• Use the tool
• Provide feedback via the mailing list or by creating github issues (both bugs and feature requests are encouraged)
• The project source code is hosted on github - if you are so inclined fork it and provide pull requests!