Announcing Vulnerability Scanning and Management for Elixir

Paraxial.io now supports vulnerability scanning and management for Elixir applications. This is done via a mix task, which can be integrated into your CI/CD pipeline, that uploads the result of each scan to the Paraxial.io backend for tracking and reporting. This fulfills the compliance requirements for a number of security standards, and gives your team actionable metrics on the security of your project.

There are three popular security tools for ensuring the security of Phoenix applications:

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1. Sobelow, for static analysis of source code for vulnerabilities
2. deps.audit, to scan a project's dependencies for vulnerabilities
3. hex.audit, to scan for dependencies that have been marked as retired

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It may seem straightforward to integrate these tools into your existing CI/CD pipeline, but consider the following questions:

1. When was the last time the scan ran successfully?
2. Do you have a record of when all these scans happened?
3. Did the numbers of vulnerabilities increase or decrease compared to the previous scans?
4. How do you view the findings of the most recent scan? Of a scan from 3 months ago?

With Paraxial.io’s Code Scan feature, you have all this information available in a convenient web interface. Each scan is started with a simple mix command:

mix paraxial.scan

The results of the scan are uploaded to the Paraxial.io backend, providing you with a record of all scans and findings for regulatory and compliance requirements.

Getting Started

Create a Paraxial.io account, after registration you will be taken to the “Sites” page.

We create a new site, felis-dev, for our project:

Then visit the code scans page:

In your Phoenix application, install the Paraxial agent via mix.exs

  defp deps do
    [
      {:phoenix, "~> 1.6.15"},
      {:phoenix_ecto, "~> 4.4"},
      {:ecto_sql, "~> 3.6"},
      ...
      {:paginator, "== 0.6.0"},
      {:sobelow, "~> 0.11.1"},
      {:paraxial, "~> 2.2.0"}
    ]
  end

mix deps.get

Update the configuration in config/dev.exs

config :paraxial,
  paraxial_api_key: "API_KEY_REDACTED",
  paraxial_url: "https://app.paraxial.io"

With the Paraxial agent installed, you can now run a scan:

@ felis % mix paraxial.scan

13:07:24.329 [info]  [Paraxial] API key found, scan results will be uploaded
Found retired packages
[Paraxial] Scan findings: %Paraxial.Scan{
  api_key: "REDACTED",
  findings: [
    %Paraxial.Finding{
      content: %{
        "confidence" => "high_confidence",
        "file" => "lib/felis_web/controllers/page_controller.ex",
        "line" => 12,
        "type" => "DOS.StringToAtom: Unsafe `String.to_atom`",
        "variable" => "color"
      },
      source: "sobelow"
    },
    %Paraxial.Finding{
      content: %{
        "confidence" => "high_confidence",
        "file" => "config/prod.exs",
        "line" => 0,
        "type" => "Config.HTTPS: HTTPS Not Enabled"
      },
      source: "sobelow"
    },
    %Paraxial.Finding{
      content: %{
        "confidence" => "high_confidence",
        "file" => "lib/felis_web/router.ex",
        "line" => 10,
        "pipeline" => "browser",
        "type" => "Config.CSP: Missing Content-Security-Policy"
      },
      source: "sobelow"
    },
    %Paraxial.Finding{
      content: %{
        "First patched versions" => " 1.0.0",
        "Lockfile" => " /Users/dt/paraxial_repos/felis/mix.lock",
        "Name" => " paginator",
        "Severity" => " critical",
        "Title" => " Remote Code Execution in paginator",
        "URL" => " https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-w98m-2xqg-9cvj",
        "Version" => " 0.6.0",
        "Vulnerable versions" => " < 1.0.0"
      },
      source: "deps.audit"
    },
    %Paraxial.Finding{
      content: %{
        "dependency" => "mojito",
        "reason" => "(deprecated) Mojito is now deprecated, use Finch instead: https://github.com/sneako/finch",
        "version" => "0.7.12"
      },
      source: "hex.audit"
    },
    %Paraxial.Finding{
      content: %{
        "dependency" => "paginator",
        "reason" => "(security) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability",
        "version" => "0.6.0"
      },
      source: "hex.audit"
    }
  ],
  timestamp: ~U[2023-01-03 18:07:25.825954Z]
}

13:07:26.498 [info]  [Paraxial] Scan upload success

And view the results:

To eliminate the findings due to deprecated and vulnerable packages, we remove them for this example. In your real application you could also upgrade them.

  defp deps do
    [
      {:phoenix, "~> 1.6.15"},
      ...
      {:jason, "~> 1.2"},
      {:plug_cowboy, "~> 2.5"},
      {:httpoison, "~> 1.8"},
      #{:mojito, "~> 0.7.12"},
      #{:paginator, "== 0.6.0"},
      {:sobelow, "~> 0.11.1"},
      {:paraxial, "~> 2.2.0"}
    ]
  end

mix deps.unlock --all
mix deps.get
mix paraxial.scan

The remaining vulnerabilities are from Sobelow, which provides a flag to mark all current findings as skippable, if all the current findings are false positives:

@ felis % mix sobelow --mark-skip-all

Check for the creation of a .sobelow-skips file:

Then run mix paraxial.scan:

@ felis % mix paraxial.scan          

13:13:21.052 [info]  [Paraxial] API key found, scan results will be uploaded
[Paraxial] Scan findings: %Paraxial.Scan{
  api_key: "REDACTED",
  findings: [],
  timestamp: ~U[2023-01-03 18:13:22.353607Z]
}

13:13:22.993 [info]  [Paraxial] Scan upload success
@ felis % 

The Sobelow findings have been successfully excluded from future scans. You can also view a full history of every scan.

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