SCA vs SAST: what are they and which one is right for you?

GitHub strives to provide developers with effective tools and knowledge to maintain secure projects by offering resources on security best practices and addressing common vulnerabilities. The landscape of security has evolved from relying solely on expert testing to enabling developers to secure code themselves through tools like Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Software Composition Analysis (SCA). SCA tools help manage open source components by identifying vulnerabilities and ensuring compliance, while SAST tools focus on proprietary code by detecting potential security flaws early in the development lifecycle. GitHub offers its own versions of these tools, with Dependabot for SCA and code scanning for SAST, both of which integrate seamlessly into the developer workflow to provide continuous security monitoring and remediation guidance. These tools, available for free on open-source projects and as part of GitHub Advanced Security for enterprises, aim to efficiently identify and address security issues, thereby fostering a safer and more productive open-source ecosystem.