Security-related rules

The SonarQube quality model is applied to an automated code review and analysis based on four types of rules.

The four rule types included in the SonarQube quality model are:

• Reliability (bug)

• Maintainability (code smell)

• Security (vulnerability)

• Security Hotspot

Security-related rules include Security rules and Security Hotspot rules. They are divided into two types: security-injection and security-configuration rules.

Security is a lively world where new types of attacks and vulnerabilities appear very often, so we welcome any suggestions for new security rules. You can read the Adding coding rules page to see how to develop a new rule or propose a new one on our Community forum.

Security-injection rules

Security-injection rules are used to detect injection vulnerabilities. An injection vulnerability (also known as injection flaw or taint vulnerability) occurs when the inputs handled by your application are controlled by a user (potentially an attacker) and not validated or sanitized. When this occurs, the flow from sources (user-controlled inputs) to sinks (sensitive functions) will be presented. Common types include SQL Injection, Deserialization, and Command Injection vulnerabilities.

To show the flow of tainted issues, SonarQube Server uses well-known taint analysis technology on source code which allows, for example, the detection of:

• CWE-89: SQL Injection

• CWE-79: Cross-site Scripting

• CWE-94: Code Injection

• Security-injection rules are supported only by SonarQube Server and Cloud. SonarQube for IDE pulls the injection vulnerabilities raised by these products during a project analysis.

• With SonarQube Server’s Security engine custom configuration, it’s possible to extend the taint analysis of security-injection rules by configuring new sources, sanitizers, validators and sinks within the homemade frameworks that you use.

Security-configuration rules

The security-configuration rules are used to raise a security issue when:

• A sensitive function is called with a wrong parameter (invalid cryptographic algorithm or TLS version).

• A check (for example, a check_permissions() kind of function) is not done or is not in the correct order. This problem is likely to appear often when the program is executed.

Examples:

• • CWE-1004: Sensitive Cookie Without ‘HttpOnly’ Flag

  • CWE-297: Improper Validation of Certificate with Host Mismatch

  • CWE-327: Use of a Broken or Risky Cryptographic Algorithm

Differences between security issues (vulnerabilities) and hotspots

Security hotspots have been introduced for security protections that have no direct impact on the overall application’s security. With hotspots, we want to help developers understand information security risks, threats, impacts, root causes of security issues, and the choice of relevant software protections. In short, we really want to educate developers and help them develop secure, ethical, and privacy-friendly applications.

For more information about hotspots and vulnerabilities, see the Managing Security Hotspots page.

Security standards covered

Our security rules are classified according to well-established security standards such as:

• OWASP Top 10 (versions 2021 and 2017)

OWASP Top 10 security standards covered by Sonar for version 2021

Category	Python	JS/TS	Java	C#	C/C++	PHP
A01:Broken Access Control
A02: Cryptographic Failures
A03: Injection
A04: Insecure Design
A05: Security Misconfiguration
A06: Vulnerable and Outdated Components
A07: Identification and Authentication Failures
A08: Software and Data Integrity Failures
A09: Security Logging and Monitoring Failures
A10: Server-Side Request Forgery

• CWE Top 25 (versions 2023, 2022, and 2021)

CWE Top 25 security standards covered by Sonar for version 2023

Category	Python	JS/TS	Java	C#	C/C++	PHP
CWE-787: Out-of-bounds Write
CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation (‘Cross-site Scripting’)
CWE-89: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command (‘SQL Injection’)
CWE-416: Use After Free
CWE-78: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command (‘OS Command Injection’)
CWE-20: Improper Input Validation
CWE-125: Out-of-bounds Read
CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory (‘Path Traversal’)
CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
CWE-434: Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type
CWE-862: Missing Authorization
CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference
CWE-287: Improper Authentication
CWE-190: Integer Overflow or Wraparound
CWE-502: Deserialization of Untrusted Data
CWE-77: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command (‘Command Injection’)
CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer
CWE-798: Use of Hard-coded Credentials
CWE-918: Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
CWE-306: Missing Authentication for Critical Function
CWE-362: Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization (‘Race Condition’)
CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management
CWE-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code (‘Code Injection’)
CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization
CWE-276: Incorrect Default Permissions

• OWASP ASVS 4.0 Level 1, 2, 3

• PCI DSS (versions 4.0 and 3.2.1)

• CASA

• STIG

You can search for a rule on rules.sonarsource.com. The standards to which a rule relates will be listed in the See section at the bottom of the rule description. Some detailed examples of Java vulnerabilities are listed here:

• Java-vulnerability-issue-type: all vulnerability rules for Java language.

• Java-hotspots-issue-type: all security-hotspot rules for Java language.

• Java-tag-injection: all security-injection rules for Java language (not supported in SonarQube Community Build).