Nice OWASP Update Tools for Node/JS

NodeJS

This morning I did a little security updating on a project at The Shop - a few OWASP issues for dependencies. One had risen to a high level, so it seemed like a good time to dig into the updating process.

In the past, for Java and Clojure projects, I've had to go and look up the recent versions of each library and see if they correct the security issue, and if they do, are there other updates that I have to do in order to handle any changes from these security-related updates? It was often times a very tedious process, and doing it for Java Spring projects was almost something like Black Magic.

Imagine my surprise when I find that Node/JS already has this covered. Simply run:

  $ npm audit

and not only will it list all the OWASP security vulnerabilities, but it will also provide you with the specific npm commands to update (aka install) the specific package, and how far down the nesting tree that package sits.

Run the commands specified by the npm audit command, and you'll update just what's needed, and not have to go through the process manually. What a refreshing change to my previous encounters with fixing OWASP vulnerabilities. 🙂