Security practices take focus off programmers and onto systems
October 11, 2012 —
(Page 2 of 3)
Repository medicine
Sonatype, the company behind open-source project Maven, has taken a new approach to its business in order to address security. Jason van Zyl, founder of Sonatype and creator of the Maven project, said that he realized soon after his new CEO Wayne Jackson, who has a software security background, joined the company that Sonatype was in a terrific position to offer security to its users. And so the company has added a security element on top of its offerings.
Maven works by using a central repository for storing verified Java artifacts. That means all the popular libraries, projects, frameworks and code stores are generally available in the Maven Central repository for anyone in the world to use for their builds.
This places Maven at the top of the Java food chain, and van Zyl said that Sonatype is in a unique position to observe all security updates for the entirety of Java. Thus, he said, Sonatype can serve as a security Sherpa for enterprises that use open-source Java components.
“We're purely focused on the third-party open-source component consumption. We've had to make something pretty sophisticated to look into a JAR file or classes,” said van Zyl. He said that not only is Sonatype tracking major security vulnerabilities in Java projects, the company has also released scanning tools to check for open-source code embedded or modified in other programs. This ensures that existing vulnerabilities aren't missed when they exist inside other code.
How does Sonatype stack up against traditional security-scanning companies? “They're focused on scanning your code, we are focused on working with the third-party open-source binaries we download,” said van Zyl. “As far as we can tell, our customers’ application development has essentially become component assembly, we've seen [that] upward of 80% of it is open-source components, or higher. Then there's the small bit of business code you're writing that adds value.”
Commercial accountability
While Sonatype is focused on ensuring the security of existing open-source components, and alerting users when they need to update a vulnerable library, SaaS code-scanning company Veracode is taking on matters from the other side of the fence. While Veracode cut its teeth scanning binaries for security holes, it's now offering to scan third-party applications for a fee as well.
Related Search Term(s): Denim Group, security, Sonatype, Veracode
Share this link: http://sdt.bz/37067
Most Read
Latest News
Resources
SAP unveils SAP HANA platform innovations for Big Data and spatial processing
Features include smart data access and expanded cloud deployment options
|
|
|
Alteryx raises $12 million to put Big Data analytics in the hands of all business analysts
Quest founder's firm, Toba Capital, selects Alteryx as its first analytics investment
|
|
|
Google I/O kicks off
Developers get new APIs and tools, and the Go language hits version 1.1
|
|
|
Jelastic launches new version of its Java and PHP hosting platform
Jelastic today announced the launch of a new version of its ultra-scalable cloud hosting platform
|
Telerik adds back-end services to Icenium mobile tool suite
Icenium Everlive makes the suite a complete app development platform, the company says
|
|
|
CollabNet fuses CloudForge, TeamForge
New pricing structure and integration gives developers an enterprise-grade choice for dist...
|
|
|
Eclipse release train for Kepler arrives June 26
New version of Eclipse includes Stardust for business process management, and Orion 3.0 fo...
|
|
|
Google I/O kicks off
Developers get new APIs and tools, and the Go language hits version 1.1
|
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Testing and ASQ SaaS
Demand for solutions to test applications on the cloud and for the cloud is rising signifi...
|
|
|
Get to Know the Database Decision Factors
What should you look for when choosing a relational database system? This informative arti...
|
|
|
Exploring the Database Forest
Today’s database technology landscape is more dynamic and varied than ever before. What’s...
|
|
|
Data Management Resource Guide
Today’s data is generated by more than just applications. Data is generated by trillions o...
|