# Sobelow
Sobelow is a security-focused static analysis tool for the
Phoenix framework. For security researchers, it is a useful
tool for getting a quick view of points-of-interest. For
project maintainers, it can be used to prevent the introduction
of a number of common vulnerabilities.
Currently Sobelow detects some types of the following
security issues:
* Insecure configuration
* Known-vulnerable Dependencies
* Cross-Site Scripting
* SQL injection
* Command injection
* Denial of Service
* Directory traversal
* Unsafe serialization
Potential vulnerabilities are flagged in different colors
according to confidence in their insecurity. High confidence is
red, medium confidence is yellow, and low confidence is green.
A finding is typically marked "low confidence" if it looks
like a function could be used insecurely, but it cannot
reliably be determined if the function accepts user-supplied
input. That is to say, if a finding is marked green, it may be
critically insecure, but it will require greater manual
validation.
**Note:** This project is in constant development, and
additional vulnerabilities will be flagged as time goes on.
If you encounter a bug, or would like to request additional
features or security checks, please open an issue!
## Installation
To install Sobelow, you must have a working Elixir environment.
Then, execute the following from the command line:
$ mix archive.install hex sobelow
You may also install directly from GitHub with the following
command:
$ mix archive.install github nccgroup/sobelow
## Use
The simplest way to scan a Phoenix project is to run the
following from the project root:
$ mix sobelow
## Options
* `--root -r` - Specify application root directory
* `--verbose -v` - Print code snippets and additional finding details
* `--ignore -i` - Ignore modules
* `--ignore-files` - Ignore files
* `--details -d` - Get module details
* `--all-details` - Get all module details
* `--private` - Skip update checks
* `--router` - Specify router location
* `--exit` - Return non-zero exit status
* `--format -f` - Specify findings output format
* `--quiet` - Return no output if there are no findings
* `--compact` - Minimal, single-line findings
The `root` option takes a path argument:
$ mix sobelow --root ../my_project
The `verbose` option takes no arguments:
$ mix sobelow --verbose
The `ignore` option takes a comma-separated list of modules:
$ mix sobelow -i XSS.Raw,Traversal
The `ignore-files` option takes a comma-separated list of file
names. File names should be absolute paths, or relative to the
application root.
$ mix sobelow --ignore-files config/prod.exs
The `details` option takes a single module:
$ mix sobelow -d Config.CSRF
The `exit` option accepts a confidence threshold (low, medium, or high),
and will return a non-zero exit status at or above that threshold.
$ mix sobelow --exit Low
The `format` option accepts an output format for findings. Current formats
include `txt` (the default) and `json`.
Note: The `json` format option does not support the `--verbose` flag.
All findings are organized by confidence level, and contain a "type"
key. However, other keys may vary between finding types.
$ mix sobelow --format json
## Configuration Files
Sobelow allows users to save frequently used options in a
configuration file. For example, if you find yourself constantly
running:
$ mix sobelow -i XSS.Raw,Traversal --verbose --exit Low
You can use the `--save-config` flag to create your `.sobelow-conf`
config file:
$ mix sobelow -i XSS.Raw,Traversal --verbose --exit Low --save-config
This command will create the `.sobelow-conf` file at the root
of your application. You can edit this file directly to make
changes.
Now if you want to run Sobelow with the saved configuration,
you can run Sobelow with the `--config` flag.
$ mix sobelow --config
## False Positives
Sobelow favors over-reporting versus under-reporting. As such,
you may find a number of false positives in a typical scan.
These findings may be individually ignored by adding a
`# sobelow_skip` comment, along with a list of modules, before
the function definition.
```elixir
# sobelow_skip ["Traversal"]
def vuln_func(...) do
...
end
```
Then, run the scan with the `--skip` flag.
$ mix sobelow --skip
Config and Vulnerable Dependency findings cannot be skipped in
this way. For these, use the standard `ignore` option.
## Modules
Findings categories are broken up into modules. These modules
can then be used to either ignore classes of findings (via the
`ignore` and `skip` options) or to get vulnerability details (via the
`details` option).
This list, and other helpful information, can be found on the
command line:
$ mix help sobelow
## Updates
When scanning a project, Sobelow will occasionally check for
updates, and will print an alert if a new version is available.
Sobelow keeps track of the last update-check by creating a
`.sobelow` file in the root of the scanned project.
If this functionality is not desired, the `--private` flag can
be used with the scan.
$ mix sobelow --private