OWASP dep-scan is a next-generation security and risk audit tool based on known vulnerabilities, advisories, and license limitations for project dependencies. Both local repositories and container images are supported as the input, and the tool is ideal for integration with ASPM/VM platforms and in CI environments.

• Features
  • Vulnerability Data sources
  • Linux distros
• Usage
  • Scanning projects locally (Python version)
  • Scanning containers locally (Python version)
  • Scanning projects locally (Docker container)
  • Server mode
• Supported languages and package format
• Reachability analysis
  • Example analysis for a Java project
  • Example analysis for a JavaScript project
• Customization through environment variables
• GitHub Security Advisory
• Suggest mode
• Package Risk audit
  • Automatic adjustment
  • Configuring weights
• Live OS scan
• License scan
• Kubernetes and Cloud apps
• PDF reports
• Custom reports
• Performance tuning
  • Use nydus to speed up the initial vdb download
• Discord support
• License

• Scan most application code - local repos, Linux container images, Kubernetes manifests, and OS - to identify known CVEs with prioritization
• Perform advanced reachability analysis for multiple languages (See reachability analysis)
• Package vulnerability scanning is performed locally and is quite fast. No server is used!
• Generate Software Bill-of-Materials (SBOM) with Vulnerability Disclosure Report (VDR) information
• Generate a Common Security Advisory Framework (CSAF) 2.0 VEX document (check out the CSAF Readme)
• Perform deep packages risk audit for dependency confusion attacks and maintenance risks (See risk audit)

• OSV
• NVD
• GitHub
• NPM
• Linux vuln-list

• AlmaLinux
• Debian
• Alpine
• Amazon Linux
• Arch Linux
• RHEL/CentOS
• Rocky Linux
• Ubuntu
• OpenSUSE/SLES
• Photon
• Chainguard
• Wolfi OS

Application vulnerabilities would be reported for all Linux distros and Windows. To download the full vulnerability database suitable for scanning OS, invoke dep-scan with `` for the first time. dep-scan would also download the appropriate database based on project type automatically.

dep-scan is ideal for use during continuous integration (CI) and as a local development tool.

sudo npm install -g @cyclonedx/cdxgen
# Normal version recommended for most users (MIT)
pip install owasp-depscan

# For a performant version, that uses valkey cache during risk audit (BSD-3-Clause)
pip install owasp-depscan[perf]

This would install two commands called cdxgen and depscan.

You can invoke the scan command directly with the various options.

cd <project to scan>
depscan --src $PWD --reports-dir $PWD/reports

The full list of options is below:

usage: cli.py [-h] [--no-banner] [] [--csaf] [--sync] [--profile {appsec,research,operational,threat-modeling,license-compliance,generic}] [--no-suggest] [--risk-audit] [--private-ns PRIVATE_NS] [-t PROJECT_TYPE] [--bom BOM]
              [-i SRC_DIR_IMAGE] [-o REPORT_FILE] [--reports-dir REPORTS_DIR] [--report-template REPORT_TEMPLATE] [--report-name REPORT_NAME] [--no-error] [--no-license-scan] [--deep] [--no-universal] [--no-vuln-table]
              [--threatdb-server THREATDB_SERVER] [--threatdb-username THREATDB_USERNAME] [--threatdb-password THREATDB_PASSWORD] [--threatdb-token THREATDB_TOKEN] [--server] [--server-host SERVER_HOST] [--server-port SERVER_PORT]
              [--cdxgen-server CDXGEN_SERVER] [--debug] [--explain] [--reachables-slices-file REACHABLES_SLICES_FILE] [-v]

Fully open-source security and license audit for application dependencies and container images based on known vulnerabilities and advisories.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --no-banner           Do not display banner
                 Cache vulnerability information in platform specific user_data_dir
  --csaf                Generate a OASIS CSAF VEX document
  --sync                Sync to receive the latest vulnerability data. Should have invoked cache first.
  --profile {appsec,research,operational,threat-modeling,license-compliance,generic}
                        Profile to use while generating the BOM.
  --no-suggest          Disable suggest mode
  --risk-audit          Perform package risk audit (slow operation). Npm only.
  --private-ns PRIVATE_NS
                        Private namespace to use while performing oss risk audit. Private packages should not be available in public registries by default. Comma separated values accepted.
  -t PROJECT_TYPE, --type PROJECT_TYPE
                        Override project type if auto-detection is incorrect
  --bom BOM             Examine using the given Software Bill-of-Materials (SBOM) file in CycloneDX format. Use cdxgen command to produce one.
  -i SRC_DIR_IMAGE, --src SRC_DIR_IMAGE
                        Source directory or container image or binary file
  -o REPORT_FILE, --report_file REPORT_FILE
                        DEPRECATED. Use reports directory since multiple files are created. Report filename with directory
  --reports-dir REPORTS_DIR
                        Reports directory
  --report-template REPORT_TEMPLATE
                        Jinja template file used for rendering a custom report
  --report-name REPORT_NAME
                        Filename of the custom report written to the --reports-dir
  --no-error            UNUSED: Continue on error to prevent build from breaking
  --no-license-scan     UNUSED: dep-scan doesn't perform license scanning by default
  --deep                Perform deep scan by passing this --deep argument to cdxgen. Useful while scanning docker images and OS packages.
  --no-universal        Depscan would attempt to perform a single universal scan instead of individual scans per language type.
  --no-vuln-table       Do not print the table with the full list of vulnerabilities. This can help reduce console output.
  --threatdb-server THREATDB_SERVER
                        ThreatDB server url. Eg: https://api.sbom.cx
  --threatdb-username THREATDB_USERNAME
                        ThreatDB username
  --threatdb-password THREATDB_PASSWORD
                        ThreatDB password
  --threatdb-token THREATDB_TOKEN
                        ThreatDB token for token based submission
  --server              Run depscan as a server
  --server-host SERVER_HOST
                        depscan server host
  --server-port SERVER_PORT
                        depscan server port
  --cdxgen-server CDXGEN_SERVER
                        cdxgen server url. Eg: http://cdxgen:9090
  --debug               Run depscan in debug mode.
  --explain             Makes depscan to explain the various analysis. Useful for creating detailed reports.
  --reachables-slices-file REACHABLES_SLICES_FILE
                        Path for the reachables slices file created by atom.
  --purl SEARCH_PURL    Scan a single package url.
  -v, --version         Display the version

Scan a Java project.

depscan --src <path> -o containertests/depscan-scan.json -t java

Scan latest tag of the container shiftleft/scan-slim

depscan --src shiftleft/scan-slim -o containertests/depscan-scan.json -t docker

Include license to the type to perform the license audit.

depscan --src shiftleft/scan-slim -o containertests/depscan-scan.json -t docker,license

You can also specify the image using the sha256 digest

depscan --src redmine@sha256:a5c5f8a64a0d9a436a0a6941bc3fb156be0c89996add834fe33b66ebeed2439e -o containertests/depscan-redmine.json -t docker

You can also save container images using docker or podman save command and pass the archive to depscan for scanning.

docker save -o /tmp/scanslim.tar shiftleft/scan-slim:latest
# podman save --format oci-archive -o /tmp/scanslim.tar shiftleft/scan-slim:latest
depscan --src /tmp/scanslim.tar -o reports/depscan-scan.json -t docker

Refer to the docker tests under the GitHub action workflow for this repo for more examples.

ghcr.io/owasp-dep-scan/dep-scan container image can be used to perform the scan.

To scan with default settings

docker run --rm -v $PWD:/app ghcr.io/owasp-dep-scan/dep-scan --src /app --reports-dir /app/reports

To scan with custom environment variables based configuration

docker run --rm \
    -e VDB_HOME=/db \
    -e GITHUB_TOKEN=<token> \
    -v /tmp:/db \
    -v $PWD:/app ghcr.io/owasp-dep-scan/dep-scan --src /app --reports-dir /app/reports

In the above example, /tmp is mounted as /db into the container. This directory is then specified as VDB_HOME for caching the vulnerability information. This way the database can be cached and reused to improve performance.

Depscan can perform reachability analysis for Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Python with built-in support for parsing atom reachables slicing. Simply invoke depscan with the research profile and language type to enable this feature.

To receive a verbose output including the reachable flows, pass the argument --explain

--profile research -t language [--explain]

depscan --profile research -t java -i <source directory> --reports-dir <reports directory> --explain

depscan --profile research -t js -i <source directory> --reports-dir <reports directory> --explain

Ensure PHP > 7.4 is installed. However, we support scanning PHP 5.2 - 8.3. Alternatively, use the depscan container image.

depscan --profile research -t php -i <source directory> --reports-dir <reports directory> --explain

dep-scan uses cdxgen command internally to create a Software Bill-of-Materials (SBOM) file for the project. This is then used for performing the scans.

The following projects and package-dependency format is supported by cdxgen.

dep-scan and cdxgen could be run in server mode. Use the included docker-compose file to get started.

git clone https://github.com/owasp-dep-scan/dep-scan
docker compose up

depscan --server --server-host 0.0.0.0 --server-port 7070

In server mode, use /cache endpoint to cache the vulnerability database.

# This would take over 5 minutes
curl http://0.0.0.0:7070/cache

Use the /scan endpoint to perform scans.

• Scanning a local directory. Scanning an SBOM file (present locally).

curl --json '{"path": "/tmp/vulnerable-aws-koa-app/sbom_file.json", "type": "js"}' http://0.0.0.0:7070/scan

• Scanning a GitHub repo.

curl --json '{"url": "https://github.com/HooliCorp/vulnerable-aws-koa-app", "type": "js"}' http://0.0.0.0:7070/scan -o app.vdr.json

• Uploading an SBOM file and generating results based on it.

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: multipart/form-data' -F 'file=@/tmp/app/sbom_file.json' http://0.0.0.0:7070/scan?type=js

The following environment variables can be used to customize the behavior.

• VDB_HOME - Directory to use for caching database. For docker-based execution, this directory should get mounted as a volume from the host
• VDB_DATABASE_URL - Vulnerability DB URL. Defaults to: ghcr.io/appthreat/vdbgz:v5
• USE_VDB_10Y - Set to true to use the larger 10-year vulnerability database. Default download url: ghcr.io/appthreat/vdb-10y:v5

To download security advisories from GitHub, a personal access token with minimal permissions is necessary.

• Fine-grained token: Grant no permissions and select the following for repository access: Public Repositories (read-only)
• Token (classic): Grant no permissions

export GITHUB_TOKEN="<PAT token>"

Depscan comes with a suggest mode enabled by default to simplify the triaging experience. The fix version for each vulnerability is retrieved from the sources. Sometimes, there might be known vulnerabilities in the fix version reported. Eg: in the below screenshot the fix versions suggested for jackson-databind might contain known vulnerabilities.

Notice, how the new suggested version is 2.9.10.5 which is an optimal fix version. Please note that the optimal fix version may not be the appropriate version for your application based on compatibility.

Pass --no-suggest to disable this behavior.

--risk-audit argument enables package risk audit. Currently, only npm and PyPI packages are supported in this mode. Some risk factors are identified and assigned weights to compute a final risk score. Packages that then exceed a maximum risk score (config.pkg_max_risk_score) are presented in a table.

Use --private-ns to specify the private package namespace that should be checked for dependency confusion type issues where a private package is available on the public npm/pypi registry.

For example, to check if private packages with namespaces @appthreat and @shiftleft are not accidentally made public, use the below argument.

--private-ns appthreat,shiftleft

Refer to pkg_query.py::get_category_score method for the risk formula.

A parameter called created_now_quarantine_seconds is used to identify packages that are safely past the quarantine period (1 year). Certain risks such as pkg_min_versions and pkg_min_maintainers are suppressed for packages past the quarantine period. This adjustment helps reduce noise since it is unlikely that a malicious package can exist in a registry unnoticed for over a year.

All parameters can be customized by using environment variables. For eg:

export PKG_MIN_VERSIONS=4 to increase and set the minimum versions category to 4.

By passing -t os, depscan can generate an SBOM for a live operating system or a VM with OS packages and kernel information. Optionally, pass the argument --deep to generate an SBOM with both OS and application packages and to check for application vulnerabilities.

All OS packages.

depscan -t os -i . -o reports/depscan.json

All OS and application packages.

depscan -t os --deep -i . -o reports/depscan.json

dep-scan can scan the dependencies for any license limitations and report them directly on the console log. To enable license scanning set the environment variable FETCH_LICENSE to true.

export FETCH_LICENSE=true

The license data is sourced from choosealicense.com and is quite limited. If the license of a given package cannot be reliably matched against this list it will get silently ignored to reduce any noise. This behavior could change in the future once the detection logic gets improved.

dep-scan could auto-detect most cloud applications and Kubernetes manifest files. Pass the argument -t yaml-manifest to manually specify the type.

Ensure wkhtmltopdf is installed or use the official container image to generate pdf reports. Use with --explain for more detailed reports.

dep-scan can be provided with a Jinja template using the --report-template parameter. Giving it will pass the vulnerability report into your template for rendering the report.

Please find a basic example here:

{% if metadata -%}
Report for {{ metadata.component.group }}:{{ metadata.component.name }}:{{ metadata.component.version }}
{% endif -%}

{% if vulnerabilities -%}
There were {{ vulnerabilities | length }} issues identified:

{% for vuln in vulnerabilities -%}
* {{ vuln['bom-ref'] }} - {{ vuln.recommendation }}
{% endfor -%}
{% else -%}
🏆 _No vulnerabilities found_
{% endif -%}

Severity counts:
* Low: {{ summary.LOW }}
* Medium: {{ summary.MEDIUM }}
* High: {{ summary.HIGH }}
* Critical: {{ summary.CRITICAL }}
* Unspecified: {{ summary.UNSPECIFIED }}

The objects available are taken from the CycloneDX *.vdr.json BOM file generated, just have a look at the file for its full structure:

• metadata
• vulnerabilities
• components
• dependencies
• services

summary is a dictionary type with vulnerability severity quantities as shown in the example above. pkg_vulnerabilities - Same as vulnerabilities from the VDR pkg_group_rows - List of vulnerability id and the dependency tree prioritized by depscan.

Furthermore, insights are imaginable to be made available to the template, please reach out or contribute on demand. We appreciate it if you like to contribute your report templates as examples, please add/find them here.

MIT License

This project was donated to the OWASP Foundation in August 2023 by AppThreat Ltd.

This project is funded through NGI Zero Core, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet program. Learn more at the NLnet project page.