Secret scanning is a critical component of modern software development. It allows AppSec teams to identify exposed sensitive information (i.e., secrets) used in the software development process that, if exposed, could lead to unauthorized access and potential compromise. Given the vastness and complexity of today’s application security ecosystem, scanning for secrets can be complex. From code repositories to configuration files, container images, ticketing systems, and messaging platforms, secrets seemingly hide everywhere throughout the software development lifecycle.
For these reasons, organizations need more than just secrets scanning; they need effective secrets management—the ability to conclusively ensure that sensitive information like API keys, passwords, and tokens is protected throughout the software development lifecycle. However, traditional secret scanning methods can generate excessive noise by flagging secrets within base images. This leads to alert fatigue and diverts teams’ attention from genuine application security risks.
To eliminate this challenge, OX Security recently released a refined secrets scanning feature designed to focus exclusively on user-defined secrets—intentionally excluding secrets embedded within base images. This enhancement streamlines the scanning process, reduces unnecessary alerts, and empowers development and security teams to concentrate on just vulnerabilities that truly matter.
Why Exclude Base Image Secrets?
Base images serve as the foundational layers in containerized environments. They provide essential components and libraries upon which applications are built. While these images may contain embedded secrets, they are often standardized and maintained separately from the application’s unique codebase. Scanning base images for secrets can result in a flood of alerts, many of which are irrelevant to the specific application’s security context.
Excluding base image secrets from the scanning process facilitates holistic secrets management and improves our customers’ application security posture through:
- Noise reduction: Superfluous alerts are eliminated, allowing teams to focus on actionable security findings.
- False positive minimization: By ignoring OS-level secrets (which do not impact the security of the software developed), OX minimizes false positives, allowing teams to focus on business-impacting issues.
- Improved efficiency: Narrowing the scope to user-defined secrets results in a significant decrease to scan times, improving overall productivity while reducing risk.
Technical Overview of the Feature
Organizations can define parameters to detect secrets: Scan only user secrets or include base images. This flexibility helps AppSec and development teams fine tune scanning scopes, minimize false positives, and optimize resources during security analysis.
By defining specific scanning rules, organizations gain a greater focus on the issues that matter most to the business and on genuine threats.
Benefits to Customers
Prior to this platform enhancement, OX customers may have received alerts related to base image secrets that were not overly impactful to the organization’s cyber risk. With the implementation of user-focused secret scanning, customers will now be able to:
- Reduce alert fatigue: OX customers will see a significant decrease in non-essential alerts, enabling them to prioritize and address genuine security concerns promptly.
- Remediate faster, with greater accuracy: Users will receive streamlined identification of critical vulnerabilities, helping facilitate quicker issue resolution and deployment cycles.
- Strengthen security posture: Teams can now concentrate efforts on actual application risks, which will result in more secure software releases.
Conclusion
Our commitment to improving application security is exemplified through this refinement of OX’s secret scanning capabilities. By honing in on user-specific secrets and excluding those within base images, OX Security empowers organizations to maintain a vigilant and efficient security strategy, ultimately delivering safer and more reliable applications to users.
For a deeper dive into OX Security’s comprehensive approach to secret management and other advanced application security features, explore our Secret Scanning and Automating Secrets Management resources.
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