GrammaTech CodeSentry: Identifying security blind spots in third party code

GrammaTech announced CodeSentry, which performs binary software composition analysis (SCA) to inventory third party code used in custom developed applications and detect vulnerabilities they may contain. CodeSentry identifies blind spots and allows security professionals to measure and manage risk quickly and easily throughout the software lifecycle.

“Using third party components rather than building applications from scratch is an accepted practice for accelerating time to market and is fueling a massive growth in reusable code,” said Mike Dager CEO of GrammaTech.

“Most organizations now recognize the security risks that third-party code poses to their applications and business, and the need for software composition analysis provided by CodeSentry, which inspects binaries for unmatched precision.”

High profile attacks exploiting open source vulnerabilities have magnified the need for scrutiny of third-party code. According to Gartner, “Software supply chain risk has gained increased attention. In contrast with vulnerabilities — which are accidental — a growing number of incidents have been observed in which malicious code has intentionally been introduced by attackers looking to exploit the trust that exists in the open-source community.”

Since third party software can be delivered in source or binary form, its underlying components may be unknown to the organization using it. This code can be open source, commercial off the shelf (COTS) or contracted software.

CodeSentry can detect the components and vulnerabilities associated with them, including network components, GUI components or authentication layers. It uses deep binary analysis to create a detailed software bill of materials (SBOM) and a comprehensive list of known vulnerabilities.

“Customers using first generation software composition analysis tools that rely on source code to identify third party components are often at a disadvantage as they do not have visibility into software that is delivered as binaries,” said Vince Arneja, Chief Product Officer for GrammaTech.

“GrammaTech’s ability to provide binary analysis and create a software bill of materials eliminates this dangerous blind spot so organizations can proactively shrink their attack surface.”

Securing the modern software stack

CodeSentry, which is based on GrammaTech’s groundbreaking binary code analysis and machine learning technology, delivers deep visibility without the need for source code as well as these key benefits:

• Provides ease of use via an application upload interface that accepts native binaries, zip files, or other archives. Binaries do not require debug information and can be based on any number of instruction set architectures (ISAs).
• Analyzes the code that will run, not the build environment. This significantly reduces false positives due to superfluous code in build environments as well as components that are excluded due to build configurations.
• Identifies components present in native binaries through a variety of component matching algorithms to gather version number ranges, create a SBOM and provide links to CVE and CVSS scores.
• To enable this level of binary analysis, CodeSentry uses advanced algorithms to detect components in applications with an unsurpassed level of recall and sophistication, including strings used in natural language processing. GrammaTech’s unique ‘embedding’ technology enables CodeSentry to map component disassembly to multi-dimensional vectors and compare them to vectors derived from the components.