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Checkmarx scanner reference for STO

You can scan your repositories using Checkmarx. Harness STO supports the following workflows:

  • Ingestion workflows for all Checkmarx One services (including SAST and SCA) that can publish scan results in SARIF format. For more information, go to Ingest SARIF results.
  • Orchestration, Extraction, and Ingestion workflows for Checkmarx SAST and Checkmarx SCA scans.

Important notes for running Checkmarx scans in STO​

Docker-in-Docker requirements​

The following use cases require a Docker-in-Docker background step in your pipeline:

  • Container image scans on Kubernetes and Docker build infrastructures
  • Security steps (not step palettes) on Kubernetes and Docker build infrastructures
    • Required for all target types and Orchestration/DataLoad modes

The following use cases do not require Docker-in-Docker:

Set up a Docker-in-Docker background step

  1. Go to the stage where you want to run the scan.

  2. In Overview, add the shared path /var/run.

  3. In Execution, do the following:

    1. Click Add Step and then choose Background.

    2. Configure the Background step as follows:

      1. Dependency Name = dind

      2. Container Registry = The Docker connector to download the DinD image. If you don't have one defined, go to Docker connector settings reference.

      3. Image = docker:dind

      4. Under Entry Point, add the following: dockerd

        In most cases, using dockerd is a faster and more secure way to set up the background step. For more information, go to the TLS section in the Docker quick reference.

      If the DinD service doesn't start with dockerd, clear the Entry Point field and then run the pipeline again. This starts the service with the default entry point.

      1. Under Optional Configuration, select the Privileged checkbox.
Configure the background step

Root access requirements​

You need to run the scan step with root access if either of the following apply:

note

You can set up your STO scan images and pipelines to run scans as non-root and establish trust for your own proxies using self-signed certificates. For more information, go to Configure STO to Download Images from a Private Registry.

For more information​

The following topics contain useful information for setting up scanner integrations in STO:

Checkmarx step settings for STO scans​

The recommended workflow is add a Checkmarx step to a Security Tests or CI Build stage and then configure it as described below.

Scan​

Scan Mode​

  • Orchestration Configure the step to run a scan and then ingest, normalize, and deduplicate the results.

Scan Configuration​

The predefined configuration to use for the scan. All scan steps have at least one configuration.

Target​

Type​

  • Repository Scan a codebase repo.

    In most cases, you specify the codebase using a code repo connector that connects to the Git account or repository where your code is stored. For information, go to Configure codebase.

Name​

The identifier for the target, such as codebaseAlpha or jsmith/myalphaservice. Descriptive target names make it much easier to navigate your scan data in the STO UI.

It is good practice to specify a baseline for every target.

Variant​

The identifier for the specific variant to scan. This is usually the branch name, image tag, or product version. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.

Workspace​

The workspace path on the pod running the scan step. The workspace path is /harness by default.

You can override this if you want to scan only a subset of the workspace. For example, suppose the pipeline publishes artifacts to a subfolder /tmp/artifacts and you want to scan these artifacts only. In this case, you can specify the workspace path as /harness/tmp/artifacts.

Ingestion File​

The path to your scan results when running an Ingestion scan, for example /shared/scan_results/myscan.latest.sarif.

  • The data file must be in a supported format for the scanner.

  • The data file must be accessible to the scan step. It's good practice to save your results files to a shared path in your stage. In the visual editor, go to the stage where you're running the scan. Then go to Overview > Shared Paths. You can also add the path to the YAML stage definition like this:

        - stage:
          spec:
            sharedPaths:
              - /shared/scan_results

Authentication​

Domain​

The fully-qualified URL to the scanner.

Enforce SSL​

The step and the scanner communicate over SSL by default. Set this to false to disable SSL (not safe).

Access ID​

The username to log in to the scanner.

Access Token​

The access token to log in to the scanner. In most cases this is a password or an API key.

You should create a Harness text secret with your encrypted token and reference the secret using the format <+secrets.getValue("project.my-access-token")>. For more information, go to Add and Reference Text Secrets.

Scan Tool​

Team Name​

The Checkmarx team name. Use the format /<server-name>/<team-name> — for example, /server1.myorg.org/devOpsEast.

Project Name​

The name of the scan project as defined in the scanner. This is the also the target name in the Harness UI (Security Tests > Test Targets).

Log Level, CLI flags, and Fail on Severity​

Log Level​

The minimum severity of the messages you want to include in your scan logs. You can specify one of the following:

  • DEBUG
  • INFO
  • WARNING
  • ERROR

Additional CLI flags​

You can use this field to run the Checkmarx plugin with specific command-line arguments. To run an incremental scan, for example, specify -incremental.

Running incremental scans with Checkmarx​

In some cases, you might want to run an incremental rather than a full scan with Checkmarx due to time or licensing limits. An incremental scan evaluates only new or changed code in a merge or pull request. Incremental scans are faster than full scans, but become less accurate over time.

note

Consider carefully when to run incremental vs. full scans. See When should I use Incremental Scans vs Full Scans in CxSAST? in the Checkmarx documentation.

Fail on Severity​

Every Security step has a Fail on Severity setting. If the scan finds any vulnerability with the specified severity level or higher, the pipeline fails automatically. You can specify one of the following:

  • CRITICAL
  • HIGH
  • MEDIUM
  • LOW
  • INFO
  • NONE — Do not fail on severity

The YAML definition looks like this: fail_on_severity : critical # | high | medium | low | info | none

Settings​

You can use this field to provide environment variables to be used during the execution of the step. For example, if you need to access your Checkmarx server through a proxy, you can add this setting:

  • key = JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS
  • value = -DproxySet=true -Dhttp.proxyHost=MY_PROXY_ADDRESS -Dhttp.proxyPort=MY_PROXY_PORT

Replace MY_PROXY_ADDRESS with your proxy address or proxy FQDN, and MY_PROXY_PORT with your proxy port. If you want to go through an HTTPS proxy, replace -Dhttp with -Dhttps.

Exclude issues marked as Not Exploited​

You can configure the Checkmarx ingestion step to exclude issues detected by Checkmarx but flagged as Not Exploitable. To enable this setting, add the following key-value pair under Settings:

hide_not_exploitable : True

Additional Configuration​

In the Additional Configuration settings, you can use the following options:

Advanced settings​

In the Advanced settings, you can use the following options:

Example workflow: Ingest SARIF data from a Checkmarx GitHub Action scan​

The following pipeline example illustrates an ingestion workflow. It consists of two steps:

  • An Action step scans a code repo using a Checkmarx GitHub Action and export the scan results to a SARIF data file.
  • A Checkmarx step that ingests the SARIF data.

Checkmarx ingestion pipeline in Pipeline Studio

pipeline:
  projectIdentifier: STO
  orgIdentifier: default
  tags: {}
  properties:
    ci:
      codebase:
        connectorRef: GITHUB_CONNECTOR
        repoName: https://github.com/OWASP/NodeGoat
        build: <+input>
  stages:
    - stage:
        name: CheckmarxSCA
        identifier: checkmarxone
        type: CI
        spec:
          cloneCodebase: true
          execution:
            steps:
              - step:
                  type: Action
                  name: Checkmarx Scan GHA
                  identifier: CxFlow
                  spec:
                    uses: checkmarx-ts/checkmarx-cxflow-github-action@v1.6
                    with:
                      project: SampleProject
                      team: /CxServer/nzsouth
                      scanners: sca
                      checkmarx_url: <+secrets.getValue("my-checkmarx-url")>
                      checkmarx_username: zeronorth
                      checkmarx_password:  <+secrets.getValue("my-checkmarx-password")>
                      checkmarx_client_secret: <+secrets.getValue("my-checkmarx-client-secret")>
                      sca_username: harness
                      sca_password:  <+secrets.getValue("my-sca-passeword")>
                      sca_tenant: cxIntegrations
                      break_build: false
              - step:
                  type: Checkmarx
                  name: ingest-cmarx
                  identifier: Checkmarx_1
                  spec:
                    mode: ingestion
                    config: default
                    target:
                      name: <+pipeline.name>
                      type: repository
                      variant: dev
                    advanced:
                      log:
                        level: debug
                    runAsUser: "1001"
                    ingestion:
                      file: /harness/cx.sarif
          platform:
            os: Linux
            arch: Amd64
          runtime:
            type: Cloud
            spec: {}
          sharedPaths:
            - /shared/scan_results/
  identifier: CheckmarxGitAction
  name: CheckmarxGitAction