[ievans]

We added support to the Semgrep engine for combining package metadata restrictions (from the CVE format) with code search patterns that indicate you're using the vulnerable library (we're writing those mostly manually, but Semgrep makes it pretty easy):

    - id: vulnerable-awscli-apr-2017
      pattern-either:
      - pattern: boto3.resource('s3', ...)
      - pattern: boto3.client('s3', ...)
      r2c-internal-project-depends-on:
        namespace: pypi
        package: awscli
        version: "<= 1.11.82"
      message: this version of awscli is subject to a directory traversal vulnerability in the s3 module

This is still experimental and internal (https://semgrep.dev/docs/experiments/r2c-internal-project-de...) but eventually we'd like to promote it and also maybe open up our CVE rules more as well!

[mattkopecki]

Here is a good writeup of some of the pros and cons of using a "reachability" approach.

https://blog.sonatype.com/prioritizing-open-source-vulnerabi...

>Unfortunately, no technology currently exists that can tell you whether a method is definitively not called, and even if it is not called currently, it’s just one code change away from being called. This means that reachability should never be used as an excuse to completely ignore a vulnerability, but rather reachability of a vulnerability should be just one component of a more holistic approach to assessing risk that also takes into account the application context and severity of the vulnerability.

[DannyBee]

Err, "no technology currently exists" is wrong, "no technology can possibly exist" to say whether something if definitively called.

It's an undecidable problem in any of the top programming languages, and some of the sub problems (like aliasing) themselves are similarly statically undecidable in any meaningful programming language.

You can choose between over-approximation or under-approximation.

[sverhagen]

I saw that Java support was still in beta. But it makes me wonder if it's going to come with a "don't use reflection" disclaimer, then...?