What is Software Composition Analysis (SCA)?
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) is a category of application security tooling that scans codebases to identify open source and third-party dependencies, flag known vulnerabilities in those dependencies, and report on license obligations. SCA tools also generate Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) to give teams a full inventory of what their software contains.
What it does
SCA tools parse package manifests, lock files, and sometimes compiled binaries to build a dependency graph of every open source library a project uses. They then cross-reference that graph against vulnerability databases such as the NVD, OSV, and vendor advisories to surface known CVEs. Beyond security, SCA tools flag license types, such as GPL or AGPL, that may conflict with commercial distribution. Many tools also generate SBOMs in standard formats like CycloneDX or SPDX, which regulators and enterprise customers increasingly require.
Key actions SCA tools perform:
- Detect direct and transitive open source dependencies
- Match dependencies to published CVEs and severity scores
- Identify end-of-life (EOL) packages that no longer receive security patches
- Flag license conflicts across the dependency tree
- Generate and export SBOMs
- Open pull requests or suggest version upgrades to fix vulnerable packages
- Apply reachability analysis to determine whether vulnerable code paths are actually called
Why teams buy it
Most modern applications are 70-90% open source code by volume. A single vulnerable transitive dependency can expose an entire product. SCA sits inside the Application Security category alongside Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), but focuses specifically on third-party code rather than code developers write themselves. Regulatory frameworks such as the US Executive Order on Cybersecurity and the EU Cyber Resilience Act now require SBOM artifacts, making SCA a compliance tool as well as a security one.
What to look for
- Dependency depth: Does the tool detect transitive dependencies, not just direct ones?
- Reachability analysis: Can it determine whether a vulnerable function is actually reachable in your code?