Flexera Adds Big Automation Boost to Open Source Software Scanning, Compliance and Protection

“FlexNet Code Insight gives software vendors a helping hand to get ahead of a very real threat impacting the entire software supply chain,” said Jeff Luszcz, Vice President of Product Management at Flexera.  “More than 50 percent of code contained in commercial software releases is open source.  However, with the steady increase in vulnerabilities found in unmanaged open source code, unsuspecting software buyers are unaware of the vulnerability risk they face.  By adding ease-of-use, speed and intelligence, FlexNet Code Insight provides the most comprehensive approach to removing OSS risk from the software supply chain and strengthens Software Composition Analysis.”

More Automation, “Push of a Button” BOM Creation

In order to be correct and complete, Software Composition Analysis needs to be driven through a purpose-built platform that adds automation and workflows for open source detection and remediation of issues.  With the new release of FlexNet Code Insight, suppliers can add even more automation when creating a Bill of Materials that lists exactly which open source they’re using. This has become essential due to more complicated software supply chains and supplier/buyer concerns about safety, security and compliance. Based on an accurate BOM, issues can be identified and mitigated quickly.

FlexNet Code Insight saves companies even more time through easy automation of inventory, and deeper detection techniques that include dependency reporting. This enables suppliers to track all components, no matter how deeply they’re hidden. They can control the depth of open source scanning, dialing up to include top-level items only or dialing down for a deeper look at direct and transitive dependencies.

More Vulnerability Intelligence, More Protection

Anyone that’s using open source components needs a clear match list between what they’re using and what parts are vulnerable.  FlexNet Code Insight broadens vulnerability intelligence and coverage, enabling 70,000 vulnerability mappings through intelligence from Secunia Research at Flexera and the National Vulnerability Database (NVD).  Vulnerabilities map directly to a supplier’s software inventory, identifying action needed and the severity level.  The result is a clear risk report.  Based on that information, Flexera customers can focus on high-risk items first and lean on advisory data to mitigate them quickly.

Integration and Easy Plugins

Flexera continues to expand its leadership in OSS scanning, compliance and security.  The new release makes it even easier to include open source scanning seamlessly into the agile DevOps process – enabling continuous scanning, integration and remediation.

Through 15 out-of-the-box integrations, development teams can easily plug OSS scanning into their CI/CD process – making it simple to pull in data from other systems.  When code is scanned as it comes into the build, issues can be identified early and fixed fast to avoid slowing down a release.  If an issue comes up, a JIRA work item can be created to manage the remediation work to clean up the code.  Integrations include Jenkins, JIRA ALM, Git, Maven, Gradle, Artifactory, Perforce SCM, Docker, VSTS, GitLab, Team City and more.

“Open source scanning and analysis should be a standard process for any company that’s building software,” added Luszcz.  “Through deep and out-of-the-box integration with existing tools and processes, Flexera enables customers to scan and remediate as part of their standard processes – contributing significantly to building software that’s secure and compliant.”