Ethical Hacking News
Socket has acquired Coana, a startup that specializes in identifying vulnerabilities that can be safely ignored, to create a more streamlined approach to vulnerability management. With this acquisition, companies can expect a more efficient way to prioritize their efforts and resources in managing security threats.
Socket acquired Coana to reduce overwhelming security alerts faced by security teams. The number of potential vulnerabilities grows exponentially with third-party libraries and dependencies, leading to an avalanche of irrelevant security alerts. Coana's proprietary reachability analysis technology filters out non-relevant vulnerabilities, reducing noise in security alerts. Cosana's approach relies on static analysis rather than runtime analysis, making it easier to deploy and scale. The acquisition will provide a more streamlined approach to vulnerability management for companies like GitHub and npm.
In a move aimed at reducing the overwhelming amount of security alerts that security teams face, Socket has acquired Coana, a startup that specializes in identifying vulnerabilities that can be safely ignored. This acquisition marks an important step towards creating a more streamlined and efficient way to manage security threats, particularly in the context of software development.
The problem of excessive security alerts is a pressing concern for many organizations, particularly those involved in software development. As applications increasingly rely on third-party libraries and dependencies, the number of potential vulnerabilities grows exponentially. This leads to an avalanche of security alerts, many of which may not be relevant or critical, overwhelming security teams with unnecessary noise.
To address this issue, Coana has developed a proprietary reachability analysis technology that determines which vulnerabilities can be safely ignored in a given application. By analyzing the dependencies and relationships between code components, Coana's approach helps to filter out non-relevant vulnerabilities, reducing the overall noise level of security alerts.
According to Feross Aboukhadijeh, CEO of Socket, "The problem with all security tools is that there are too many alerts." He noted that the better a tool is at identifying vulnerabilities, the more likely it will generate unnecessary noise. This is particularly true for companies like Socket, which offers dependency scanning tools for software developers.
"We've seen this firsthand from our customers," Aboukhadijeh explained. "They don't want to receive a thorough dependency scan just because another tool is finding something that other tools aren't finding." Instead, they need a more nuanced approach that can help them prioritize and manage security threats more effectively.
Coana's technology relies on static analysis rather than runtime analysis, making it easier to deploy and scale. According to Martin Torp, Coana's founder and chief product officer, "Static analysis is much harder than dynamic analysis because of the inherent limitations in analyzing code statically." However, by leveraging heuristic approaches and assuming patterns in how developers write code, Coana has been able to develop a scalable and accurate solution.
"We know that there are certain patterns in code that you theoretically can write but that are really rare in practice," Torp said. "By finding this heuristic for how people actually write code, we've built something that is really good at scalable analysis while also having a very low false negative rate and low false positive rate."
The implications of Coana's technology extend far beyond the realm of security management. By providing more accurate and relevant information about vulnerabilities, Coana can help software developers prioritize their efforts and resources more effectively.
"The scenario from the user's perspective is that they have an application," Torp explained. "That application depends on some software libraries, some packages. And in these packages, there are vulnerabilities. What our reachability analysis does is to scan through the whole application, including the dependency code, and filter out or mark all of the vulnerabilities that are actually relevant in the context of that particular application."
With Coana's acquisition by Socket, companies like GitHub and npm can expect a more streamlined approach to vulnerability management. As security threats continue to evolve and become increasingly complex, the need for innovative solutions like Coana's is more pressing than ever.
In conclusion, the acquisition of Coana by Socket represents an important step towards creating a more efficient and effective way to manage security alerts in software development. By leveraging proprietary reachability analysis technology, Coana can help companies prioritize their efforts and resources more effectively, reducing the noise of unnecessary security alerts and improving overall cybersecurity posture.
Related Information:
https://www.ethicalhackingnews.com/articles/Socket-Acquires-Coana-to-Tame-the-Security-Alert-Noise-A-New-Era-for-Vulnerability-Management-ehn.shtml
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2025/05/15/socket_get_jacked_with_reachability/
Published: Thu May 15 11:36:40 2025 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
