Vulnerability Scanning

Table of Contents

• Overview
• When to Use
• Quick Start
• Reference Guides
• Best Practices

Overview

Systematically identify security vulnerabilities in applications, dependencies, and infrastructure using automated scanning tools and manual security assessments.

When to Use

• Pre-deployment security checks
• Continuous security monitoring
• Compliance audits (PCI-DSS, SOC 2)
• Dependency vulnerability detection
• Container security scanning
• Infrastructure security assessment

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

// scanner.js - Comprehensive vulnerability scanning
const { exec } = require("child_process");
const util = require("util");
const fs = require("fs").promises;

const execPromise = util.promisify(exec);

class VulnerabilityScanner {
  constructor() {
    this.results = {
      dependencies: [],
      code: [],
      docker: [],
      secrets: [],
    };
  }

  async scanDependencies() {
    console.log("Scanning dependencies with npm audit...");

    try {
      const { stdout } = await execPromise("npm audit --json");
      const auditResults = JSON.parse(stdout);

      for (const [name, advisory] of Object.entries(
// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide	Contents
Node.js Vulnerability Scanner	Node.js Vulnerability Scanner
Python OWASP Scanner	Python OWASP Scanner
CI/CD Integration - GitHub Actions	CI/CD Integration - GitHub Actions

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Automate scans in CI/CD
• Scan dependencies regularly
• Use multiple scanning tools
• Set severity thresholds
• Track vulnerability trends
• Scan containers and images
• Monitor CVE databases
• Document false positives

❌ DON'T

• Skip vulnerability scanning
• Ignore low severity issues
• Trust single scanning tool
• Bypass security gates
• Commit secrets to repos