Code auditing 101

Topics covered

This post explores the evolution from manual code review to automated security testing, covering:

  • The reality of manual code review and its limitations
  • Understanding vulnerabilities vs weaknesses
  • How SAST tools work under the hood
  • Taint analysis and data flow tracking
  • Sink-to-source vs source-to-sink methodologies
  • Mitigation strategies: whitelisting vs blacklisting
  • Dealing with false positives in practice
  • Choosing and implementing SAST tools at scale
  • The complementary relationship between manual and automated testing

It’s 3 AM. You’re on your fifth cup of coffee, eyes bloodshot, staring at line 2,847 of a 10,000-line pull request. Somewhere in this maze of curly braces and semicolons lurks a SQL injection vulnerability that could bring down your entire application. Welcome to the glamorous world of manual code review!

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