We are using it for two purposes. The first is to analyze the final binaries in our normal development cycle and the second is for auditing old software.
It's a SaaS solution.
Veracode is able to analyze the final software products. We compile the applications and it's an advantage for us because there are a lot of areas where we don't have the source code. In some companies, only internal development is taking place and they have the source code and everything else for the software. With those companies, there are other tools that we can use. But for use cases where our company buys a product with the source code, but only the final executables or the binaries, only Veracode is able to work on that type of tool. We are working in the financial sector for big bank banks and insurance companies. A lot of times, these types of companies don't have the source code for the applications, only the final applications. This is the biggest advantage of Veracode, that it's able to analyze these types of applications.
We use the scanning process to help our security professionals and developers fix flaws in the code and that helps speed up the development cycle. It helps to "shift-left" all of the security control to the earliest phase of the development cycle. It has sped up the development cycle significantly. An unexpected vulnerability can stop the development pipeline, at least for a little while, and we are able to avoid that.
It has also helped to increase our fix rate by almost 100 percent. In the past, if it turned out that we had vulnerabilities, we had no time to correct them. We went into production with them. Now, we are able to fix everything, 100 percent, in the development cycle.
In terms of best practices, we have the results from Veracode and then we have a Knowledge Base of the types of vulnerabilities and how they should be corrected by our developers.
Another benefit is that it has helped us with certification and audits. We have a lot of automated reports based on the scans and we can show them to the auditors. That has saved us a lot of money and work.
And Veracode SCA has helped to reduce the risk of a security breach because it finds vulnerabilities as early as possible. It has increased our security and development teams’ productivity because, with the automated scanning, we are able to scan much more than previously. It saves us at least one week per development cycle, if not more.
The recommendations from Veracode have improved our efforts in fixing potential vulnerabilities, and not just finding them. That's important for us because fixing is a very expensive process. If you can save time on that, it is a big help. And SCA’s automated, peer, and expert advice have definitely reduced remediation times, saving us at least a week per development cycle.
Overall, SCA has significantly lowered the risk of vulnerabilities. If we didn't identify them before production, and it turned out that there were vulnerabilities, there would be a big risk. We would have to go into production with them or stop the development pipeline. So it lowers the security risk significantly by doing early scanning. It has reduced our risk by at least 60 percent. It definitely helps create secure software. That is 100 percent important because we are working for financial companies.
It's good that it's cloud-based because we don't have to operate a new IT system for security scanning.
It provides a centralized view across all testing types, including SaaS, DAST, SCA, and manual penetration testing. We now have a central place with overall visibility.
In addition, the mitigation recommendations provided by the scanning engine are good. They are not all perfect, but they are good and usable.
There is room for improvement in the speed of the system. Sometimes, the servers are very busy and slow. Also, because we are located in Europe, it would be a big help if they had a European or national service, because of the regulations, not only because of the speed.
Also, the integration with SonarQube is very weak, so we had to implement a custom solution to extend it.
We have been using Veracode Software Composition Analysis for more than two years.
The stability is good. We haven't had any problems.
The scalability issue is a good question because it's not too fast, but it's scalable because it's cloud-based.
We use it for 10 critical applications.
Their technical support staff is skilled. We have been able to solve all of our problems with them. I wouldn't rate them a 10 because sometimes it's time-consuming to get the right guy to answer our questions. But we always get answers to our questions.
We used SonarQube because the developers liked it. We also used Checkmarx. We switched to Veracode SCA because of the binary scanning ability. Neither Checkmarx nor SonarQube is able to do that.
The initial setup was very easy. Because it's a cloud-based service, we were able to do it without the help of Veracode. We just read the recommendations and followed them. We had three guys involved, two developers and one security guy.
It took three months to implement. Our implementation strategy was to do a pilot and then everybody in the organization copied the reference implementation.
Our return on investment is due to saving a lot of development hours.
It's too expensive for the European market. That is why, in a big bank with 400 applications, we are able to use it for only 10 of them. But the other solutions are also expensive, so it wasn't a differentiator.
The static cost model is not that important. Veracode works on a subscription model, so we have to pay for it every year.
We chose Veracode's Software Composition Analysis after we evaluated more than 10 products. Among those we evaluated were Checkmarx, Fortify, and SonarQube. The primary differentiator was the binary scanning use case.
Use Veracode for the special use case of binary scanning, because it is the best in this special use case.
Security Labs is very good as well. We are not using it day-to-day, but it's a good feature.