Getting the most out of Snyk
Software development can be a lengthy process, especially if robust procedures and management are not in place. Part of the development lifecycle is testing, which can lead to longer development times if bad practices in security have been discovered — this can send the project back to the start if it could have been prevented in the design phase. However, security in development can — and should — be implemented with experience, knowledge, and of course some handy tools.
What is Snyk?
Snyk is a security product for developing software, and there are a few flavours available — I will be discussing a tool that falls into the SCA family — Software Composition Analysis, and the good news is that it is available at a free tier (which is also the subject of this article).
Snyk is an online service and can be integrated with many source control repositories such as GitHub, Bitbucket and Azure. It can also connect with container registries such as Docker and GitLab Container Registry, CI providers such as Jenkins and Terraform, and has many other forms of management such as IDE plugins.
When you connect to your project, Snyk will scan your code for known vulnerabilities. This includes vulnerable packages and third-party libraries. Knowing about these vulnerabilities earlier in your development is a real time saver and will help you to create more robust applications while still meeting deadlines and expectations. The real kicker here is that Snyk will not only locate the problem, but it will fix it for you too — by creating a pull request with the required changes that you can review and implement. Snyk also has a habit of adding more comments than most developers I have had the pleasure of working with.
Snyk also sends out a weekly report detailing the number of vulnerabilities found and their severity. This information, and more, is also available on the dashboard which details all projects and can be refined to your needs. Reporting can be extended on paid plans, which also removes the limit on tests, includes license compliance and opens the door for customisation through API access, SSO, hosting options and more.
I have been using Snyk for my own projects since the beginning of 2022 and seen improvements and fixes that would have taken more effort than I can afford personally — something that would be invaluable to development teams and organisations. Whilst there are plenty of SCA tools to choose from, Snyk has definitely got a developer-first feel and is easy to get up and running with. It is definitely worth checking out whether you are looking for the free plan for yourself, or as part of a larger team integration. I am looking forward to getting my hands dirty with their Static Application Security Testing (SAST) offering, which I will discuss in the future!