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Extending product function
Learn how to extend the product to meet specific development requirements.
HCL® AppScan® Source for Development (Eclipse Plug-in)
With AppScan® Source for Development, you can work in your existing development environment and perform security vulnerability analysis on Java and IBM® MobileFirst Platform projects. Security analysis lets you pinpoint vulnerabilities in the source code and eliminate them entirely with AppScan Source Security Knowledgebase remediation assistance.
General preferences
General preferences allow you to tailor some of the AppScan® Source for Development default settings to fit your personal preferences.

Welcome
Welcome to the documentation for HCL® AppScan® Source.
What's New
Explore these new features that have been added to AppScan® Source - and note any features and capabilities that have been deprecated in this release.
Installing
Learn how to install, upgrade, and activate HCL® AppScan® Source.
Configuring
Learn how to configure applications, folders, and projects, and set attributes and properties in HCL® AppScan® Source.
Administering
Learn how to administer user accounts and permissions, audit user activity, and manage integrations in HCL® AppScan® Source.
Scanning
This section explains how to scan your source code and manage assessments in HCL® AppScan® Source.
Triage and analysis
Grouping similar findings allows security analysts or IT auditors to segment and triage source code problems. This section explains how to triage AppScan® Source assessments and analyze results.
Reporting
Security analysts and risk managers can access reports of select findings or a series of audit reports that measure compliance with software security best practices and regulatory requirements. This section explains how to create reports of aggregate finding data.
Extending product function
Learn how to extend the product to meet specific development requirements.
- Customizing the vulnerability database and pattern rules
  This section describes how to customize the database and integrate customized vulnerabilities and other routines into scans.
- Extending the application server import framework
  AppScan® Source allows you to import Java™ applications from Apache Tomcat and WebSphere® Application Server Liberty profile. You can import Java applications from other application servers by extending the application server import framework, as explained in this topic.
- HCL® AppScan® Source for Development (Eclipse Plug-in)
  With AppScan® Source for Development, you can work in your existing development environment and perform security vulnerability analysis on Java and IBM® MobileFirst Platform projects. Security analysis lets you pinpoint vulnerabilities in the source code and eliminate them entirely with AppScan Source Security Knowledgebase remediation assistance.
  - HCL® MobileFirst Platform Application Scanning
    AppScan® Source for Development is also delivered as MobileFirst Platform Application Scanning. With MobileFirst Platform Application Scanning, you can work in your existing development environment and perform security vulnerability analysis on IBM® MobileFirst Platform projects. Security analysis lets you pinpoint vulnerabilities in the source code and eliminate them entirely with AppScan Source Security Knowledgebase remediation assistance.
  - Glossary
  - AppScan® Source for Development server mode and local mode
    The AppScan® Source for Development plug-ins can be used with or without an AppScan Enterprise Server. In server mode, you connect to the server to run scans and access shared data, just as in previous product versions. In the new local mode, AppScan Source for Development runs without ever connecting to an AppScan Enterprise Server - and you cannot access shared items such as filters, scan configurations, and custom rules.
  - Creating variables
    To open an assessment or bundle previously created in AppScan® Source for Analysis that relies on a path variable, you should create a matching variable in your development environment. Creating a variable ensures that the data is available across multiple computers. To share assessment data you must define the appropriate variables.
  - Configuring scans
    Depending on the type of project that you are scanning and the type of scanning that you want to conduct, you may need to configure your scan before running it. Projects can be configured to, for example, use an different JDK or JSP compiler than those set by default.
  - General preferences
    General preferences allow you to tailor some of the AppScan® Source for Development default settings to fit your personal preferences.
  - General preferences
    General preferences allow you to tailor some of the AppScan® Source for Development default settings to fit your personal preferences.
  - Scanning workspaces, projects, and files
    You can scan an Eclipse workspace, project, or file. This includes scanning Java™ (including Android), JavaServer Pages (JSP), and IBM® MobileFirst Platform projects.
  - Opening and saving assessments
    AppScan® Source scans source code for vulnerabilities and produces findings. Findings are the vulnerabilities identified during a scan, and the result of a scan is an assessment. You can open a saved assessment from AppScan Source for Development or AppScan Source for Analysis. After you scan, you can save the assessment to a file. Then you can open the assessment again at any time. Assessments are saved as filename.ozasmt.
  - Customizing the findings table
    In all views with findings, except the Assessment Diff view in AppScan® Source for Analysis, you can customize the findings table by identifying only the columns and the column order that you wish to see. Each view may have different settings or you can apply the options to all views. To customize the column order, follow the steps in this task topic.
  - Saving selected findings to an assessment
  - Searching for findings
    In multiple views that contain findings, you can search specific findings. The search criterion includes bundles, code, files, projects, or vulnerability types. The search results appear in the Search Results view.
  - Modifying findings
    Modified findings are findings that have changed vulnerability types, classifications, or severities - or that have annotations. The Modified Findings view displays these findings for the current application (the application that is active as a result of opening an assessment for it). In the My Assessments view (available only in AppScan® Source for Analysis), the Modified column indicates if a finding has changed in the current assessment.
  - Resolving security issues and viewing remediation assistance
    AppScan® Source alerts you to security errors or common design flaws and assists in the resolution process. The AppScan Source Security Knowledgebase - and internal or external code editors - help with this process.
  - Triage with exclusions
    After a scan, you may decide that some findings are irrelevant to your current work, and you do not want them visible in the findings table when you triage the scan results. These exclusions (or excluded findings) no longer appear in the Findings view and the assessment metrics update immediately with the changed results. Filter and bundle exclusions added to a configuration only take effect on subsequent scans.
  - Creating and managing filters
    AppScan® Source offers multiple methods for creating and using filters. The main view for filter creation, the Filter Editor view, provides a robust set of rules which can be manually set and then saved to a filter. The Filter Editor view also provides a mechanism for managing filters that you have created - allowing you to easily modify or remove them. Alternately, you can filter the findings table using views that offer graphical representations of the findings - and then save those filters in the Filter Editor view. When you create a filter, the other views update to reflect the filter properties.
  - Supported annotations and attributes
    Some annotations or attributes that are used to decorate code are processed during scans. When a supported annotation or attribute is found in your code during a scan, the information is used to mark the decorated method as a tainted callback. A method marked as a tainted callback is treated as if all of its arguments have tainted data. This results in more findings with traces. Supported annotations and attributes are listed in this help topic.
  - Working with bundles
    Bundles (a grouping mechanism for findings) allow you to import a snapshot of findings from AppScan® Source for Analysis to AppScan Source for Development. Once findings are in bundles, you can use AppScan Source for Development to open the project that contains the bundle, import the bundle, or open a saved bundle file (file_name.ozbdl).
  - AppScan® Source trace
    With AppScan® Source trace, you can verify input validation and encoding that meets your software security policies. You can look at the findings that produce input/output traces and mark methods as validation and encoding routines, sources or sinks, callbacks, or taint propagators.
  - Views and windows
    AppScan® Source for Development views and windows provide alternative presentations of findings, support code editing, and allow you to navigate the information in your workbench. A view might appear by itself, or stacked with other views in a tabbed notebook. You can change the layout of a perspective or window layout by opening and closing views and by docking them in different positions in the Workbench window.
  - Installation and user data file locations
    When you install AppScan® Source, user data and configuration files are stored outside of the installation directory.
  - CWE support
    The Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) is an industry standard list that provides common names for publicly known software weaknesses. This topic lists the CWE IDs that are supported in the current version of AppScan® Source.
  - Intelligent Findings Analytics (IFA)
    Learn about auto-triage and analysis of findings from AppScan® Source.
Reference
Review reference information for HCL® AppScan® Source, including using utilities, plug-ins, and APIs.
Troubleshooting and support
Self-help information, resources, and tools to help you troubleshoot issues while using HCL® AppScan® Source.

General preferences

General preferences allow you to tailor some of the AppScan® Source for Development default settings to fit your personal preferences.

To open the preference dialog, select HCL AppScan Source > Edit Preferences from the main menu.

Use AppScan® Enterprise Server

AppScan® Source for Development only requires an AppScan® Enterprise Server if you want to access shared items such as filters, scan configurations, and custom rules. When the Use AppScan Enterprise Server check box is selected, AppScan® Source for Development will run in server mode. When it is deselected, AppScan® Source for Development will run in local mode (see AppScan Source for Development server mode and local mode for more information).

After you select or deselect the Use AppScan Enterprise Server check box and click OK, the change will take effect after you restart Visual Studio.

Logging level

Change the logging level to provide the level of information that you want to the error logs. Errors, the default setting, logs errors only. Warning logs errors and warnings. Informational logs informational findings, errors, and warnings.

Errors are logged to <data_dir>\logs\msplugin_exceptions.log (where <data_dir> is the location of your AppScan® Source program data, as described in Installation and user data file locations).

Define variables for absolute paths

By default, you are prompted to define absolute path variables when publishing or saving assessments. Settings in this section allow you to disable this default prompt or automatically open the dialog box that allows you to define variables when absolute paths exist.

Always: If a variable to an absolute path has not been defined, require the user to define the path.
Never: Do not check to see if a variable defining an absolute path exists.
Prompt: If a variable to an absolute path has not been defined, prompt to define a variable, but do not require it.