info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
| [Container Scanning](container_scanning/index.md) | A job runs on a daily basis to build new images with the latest vulnerability database updates from the upstream scanner. For more details, see [Vulnerabilities database update](container_scanning/index.md#vulnerabilities-database-update). |
| [Dependency Scanning](dependency_scanning/index.md) | Relies on `bundler-audit` (for Ruby gems), `retire.js` (for npm packages), and `gemnasium` (the GitLab tool for all libraries). Both `bundler-audit` and `retire.js` fetch their vulnerabilities data from GitHub repositories, so vulnerabilities added to `ruby-advisory-db` and `retire.js` are immediately available. The tools themselves are updated once per month if there's a new version. The [GitLab Advisory Database](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/gemnasium-db) is updated on a daily basis using [data from NVD, the `ruby-advisory-db` and the GitHub Advisory Database as data sources](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/gemnasium-db/-/blob/master/SOURCES.md). See our [current measurement of time from CVE being issued to our product being updated](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/development/performance-indicators/#cve-issue-to-update). |
| [Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)](dast/index.md) | The scanning engine is updated on a periodic basis. See the [version of the underlying tool `zaproxy`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/dast/blob/main/Dockerfile#L1). The scanning rules are downloaded at scan runtime. |
| [Static Application Security Testing (SAST)](sast/index.md) | Relies exclusively on [the tools GitLab wraps](sast/index.md#supported-languages-and-frameworks). The underlying analyzers are updated at least once per month if a relevant update is available. The vulnerabilities database is updated by the upstream tools. |
In versions of GitLab that use the same major version of the analyzer, you do not have to update
GitLab to benefit from the latest vulnerabilities definitions. The security tools are released as
Docker images. The vendored job definitions that enable them use major release tags according to
[semantic versioning](https://semver.org/). Each new release of the tools overrides these tags.
Although in a major analyzer version you automatically get the latest versions of the scanning
tools, there are some [known issues](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/9725) with this
While you cannot directly customize Auto DevOps, you can [include the Auto DevOps template in your project's `.gitlab-ci.yml` file](../../topics/autodevops/customize.md#customizing-gitlab-ciyml).
## Security scanning without Auto DevOps
To enable all GitLab security scanning tools, with the option of customizing settings, add the
GitLab CI/CD templates to your `.gitlab-ci.yml` file.
To enable Static Application Security Testing, Dependency Scanning, License Scanning, and Secret
## Default behavior of GitLab security scanning tools
### Secure jobs in your pipeline
If you add the security scanning jobs as described in [Security scanning with Auto DevOps](#security-scanning-with-auto-devops) or [Security scanning without Auto DevOps](#security-scanning-without-auto-devops) to your `.gitlab-ci.yml` each added [security scanning tool](#security-scanning-tools) behave as described below.
For each compatible analyzer, a job is created in the `test`, `dast` or `fuzz` stage of your pipeline and runs on the next new branch pipeline.
Features such as the [Security Dashboard](security_dashboard/index.md), [Vulnerability Report](vulnerability_report/index.md), and [Dependency List](dependency_list/index.md)
that rely on this scan data only show results from pipelines on the default branch, only if all jobs are finished, including manual ones. One tool might use many analyzers.
Our language and package manager specific jobs attempt to assess which analyzer(s) they should run for your project so that you can do less configuration.
If you want to override this to increase the pipeline speed you may choose which analyzers to exclude if you know they are not applicable (languages or package managers not contained in your project) by following variable customization directions for that specific tool.
### Secure job status
Jobs pass if they are able to complete a scan. A _pass_ result does NOT indicate if they did, or did not, identify findings. The only exception is coverage fuzzing, which fails if it identifies findings.
Jobs fail if they are unable to complete a scan. You can view the pipeline logs for more information.
All jobs are permitted to fail by default. This means that if they fail it do not fail the pipeline.
If you want to prevent vulnerabilities from being merged, you should do this by adding [Security Approvals in Merge Requests](#security-approvals-in-merge-requests) which prevents unknown, high or critical findings from being merged without an approval from a specific group of people that you choose.
The artifact generated by the secure analyzer contains all findings it discovers on the target branch, regardless of whether they were previously found, dismissed, or completely new (it puts in everything that it finds).
A merge request contains a security widget which displays a summary of the NEW results. New results are determined by comparing the current findings against existing findings in the target (default) branch (if there are prior findings).
We recommended you run a scan of the `default` branch before enabling feature branch scans for your developers. Otherwise, there is no base for comparison and all feature branches display the full scan results in the merge request security widget.
The merge request security widget displays only a subset of the vulnerabilities in the generated JSON artifact because it contains both NEW and EXISTING findings.
From the merge request security widget, select **Expand** to unfold the widget, displaying any new and no longer detected (removed) findings by scan type. Select **View full report** to go directly to the **Security** tab in the latest branch pipeline.
## View security scan information in the pipeline Security tab
A pipeline's security tab lists all findings in the current branch. It includes new findings introduced by this branch and existing vulnerabilities that were already present when the branch was created. These results likely do not match the findings displayed in the Merge Request security widget as those do not include the existing vulnerabilities (with the exception of showing any existing vulnerabilities that are no longer detected in the feature branch).
## View security scan information in the Security Dashboard
The Security Dashboard show vulnerabilities present in a project's default branch. Data is updated every 24 hours. Vulnerability count updates resulting from any feature branches introducing new vulnerabilities that are merged to default are included after the daily data refresh.
For more details, see [Security Dashboard](security_dashboard/index.md).
## View security scan information in the Vulnerability Report
The vulnerability report shows the results of the last completed pipeline on the default branch. It is updated on every pipeline completion. All detected vulnerabilities are shown as well as any previous ones that are no longer detected in the latest scan. Vulnerabilities that are no longer detected may have been remediated or otherwise removed and can be marked as `Resolved` after proper verification. Vulnerabilities that are no longer detected are denoted with an icon for filtering and review.
By default, the vulnerability report does not show vulnerabilities of `dismissed` or `resolved` status so you can focus on open vulnerabilities. You can change the Status filter to see these.
[Read more about the Vulnerability report](vulnerability_report/index.md).
If your projects have rules without a security orchestration project, a new security orchestration project is created automatically with the content of the existing rule. No additional action is required.
For self managed installations, you can choose to run most of the GitLab security scanners even when [not connected to the internet](offline_deployments/index.md).
Self managed installations can also run the security scanners on a GitLab Runner [running inside OpenShift](../../install/openshift_and_gitlab/index.md).
| **Flexibility** | Supports anything that can be done in a CI file. | Limited to only the items for which GitLab has explicitly added support. DAST, SAST, Secret Detection, and Container Scanning scans are supported. |
| **Inclusion in CI pipeline** | The compliance pipeline is executed instead of the project's `gitlab-ci.yml` file. To include the project's `gitlab-ci.yml` file, use an `include` statement. Defined variables aren't allowed to be overwritten by the included project's YAML file. | Forced inclusion of a new job into the CI pipeline. DAST jobs that must be customized on a per-project basis can have project-level Site Profiles and Scan Profiles defined. To ensure separation of duties, these profiles are immutable when referenced in a scan execution policy. All jobs can be customized as part of the security policy itself with the same variables that are normally available to the CI job. |
| **Schedulable** | Can be scheduled through a scheduled pipeline on the group. | Can be scheduled natively through the policy configuration itself. |
| **Separation of Duties** | Only group owners can create compliance framework labels. Only project owners can apply compliance framework labels to projects. The ability to make or approve changes to the compliance pipeline definition is limited to individuals who are explicitly given access to the project that contains the compliance pipeline. | Only project owners can define a linked security policy project. The ability to make or approve changes to security policies is limited to individuals who are explicitly given access to the security policy project. |
| **Ability to apply one standard to multiple projects** | The same compliance framework label can be applied to multiple projects inside a group. | The same security policy project can be used for multiple projects across GitLab with no requirement of being located in the same group. |
Feedback is welcome on our vision for [unifying the user experience for these two features](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/7312)
