Microsoft Application Inspector is a software source code analysis tool that helps identify well-known features and other interesting characteristics of code to aid in determining what the software is or what it does by conducting an inspecting scan.
Application Inspector is different from traditional static analysis tools in that it doesn't attempt to identify "good" or "bad" patterns; it will simply report what it finds against a set of over 500 rule patterns for feature detection including features that impact security such as the use of cryptography and more.
It includes a filterable confidence indicator to help minimize false positives matches as well as customizable default rules and conditional match logic.
Be sure to see our project wiki page for more help https://Github.com/Microsoft/ApplicationInspector/wiki for illustrations and additional help.
Application Inspector cuts down on the time needed to determine what a component could do by quickly identifying well-known features in the code which can inform you for choosing the best component to meet your needs with a smaller footprint of unknowns which is very important. It enables you to avoid inclusion of features you don't want for the problem, system or context your app will run in.
Basically, we created Application Inspector to help us identify risky third party software components based on their specific features, but the tool is helpful in many non-security contexts as well. For instance, it can also help identify feature deltas or changes between versions which can be critical for detecting injection of backdoors.
Application Inspector v1.0 is now in GENERAL AUDIENCE release status. Your feedback is important to us. If you're interested in contributing, please review the CONTRIBUTING.md.
To use Application Inspector, download the relevant binary (either platform-specific or the multi-platform .NET Core release). If you use the .NET Core version, you will need to have .NET Core 3.0 or later installed.
Tags represent features using a systematic heirarchal nomenclature e.g. Cryptography.Protocol.TLS.
Application Inspector is a command-line tool. Run it from a command line in Windows, Linux, or MacOS.
> dotnet AppInspector.dll or on *Windows* simply AppInspector.exe <command> <options>
Microsoft Application Inspector 1.0.17
ApplicationInspector 1.0.17
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved
ERROR(S):
No verb selected.
analyze Inspect source directory/file/compressed file (.tgz|zip) against defined characteristics
tagdiff Compares unique tag values between two source paths
tagtest Test presence of smaller set or custom tags in source (compare or verify modes)
exporttags Export default unique rule tags to view what features may be detected
verifyrules Verify rules syntax is valid
help Display more information on a specific command
version Display version information
Usage: dotnet AppInspector.dll [arguments] [options]
dotnet AppInspector.dll -description of available commands
dotnet AppInspectorldll <command> -options description for a given command
Usage: dotnet AppInspector.dll analyze [arguments] [options]
Arguments:
-s, --source-path Required. Path to source code to inspect (required)
-o, --output-file-path Path to output file
-f, --output-file-format (Default: html) Output format [html|json|text]
-e, --text-format (Default: Tag:%T,Rule:%N,Ruleid:%R,Confidence:%X,File:%F,Sourcetype:%t,Line:%L,Sample:%m)
-r, --custom-rules-path Custom rules path
-t, --tag-output-only (Default: false) Output only contains identified tags
-i, --ignore-default-rules (Default: false) Ignore default rules bundled with application
-d, --allow-dup-tags (Default: false) Output only contains non-unique tag matches
-c, --confidence-filters (Default: high,medium) Output only if matches rule pattern confidence [<value>,] [high|medium|low]
-k, --include-sample-paths (Default: false) Include source files with (sample,example,test,.vs,.git) in pathname in analysis
-x, --console-verbosity (Default: medium) Console verbosity [high|medium|low|none]
-l, --log-file-path Log file path
-v, --log-file-level (Default: Error) Log file level [Debug|Info|Warn|Error|Fatal|Off]
Scan a project directory, with output sent to "output.html" (default behavior includes launching default browser to this file)
dotnet AppInspector.dll analyze -s /home/user/myproject
dotnet AppInspector.dll analyze -s /home/user/myproject -r /my/rules/directory -r /my/other/rules
dotnet AppInspector.dll analyze -s /home/user/myproject -f json
Use to analyze and report on differences in tags (features) between two project or project versions e.g. v1, v2 to see what changed
Usage: dotnet AppInspector.dll tagdiff [arguments] [options]
Arguments:
--src1 Required. Source 1 to compare (required)
--src2 Required. Source 2 to compare (required
-t, --test-type (Default: equality) Type of test to run [equality|inequality]
-r, --custom-rules-path Custom rules path
-i, --ignore-default-rules (Default: false) Ignore default rules bundled with application
-o, --output-file-path Path to output file
-x, --console-verbosity Console verbosity [high|medium|low
-l, --log-file-path Log file path
-v, --log-file-level Log file level [error|trace|debug|info]
dotnet AppInspector.dll tagdiff /home/user/project1 /home/user/project2
dotnet AppInspector.dll tagdiff /home/user/project1 /home/user/project2 -t equality
dotnet AppInspector.dll tagdiff /home/user/project1 /home/user/project2 -t inequality
Used to verify (pass/fail) that a specified set of rule tags is present or not present in a project e.g. user only wants to know true/false if crytography is present as expected or if personal data is not present as expected and get a simple yes/no result rather than a full analyis report.
Note: The user is expected to use the custom-rules-path option rather than the default ruleset because it is
unlikely that any source package would contain all of the default rules. Instead, create a custom path and rule set
as needed or specify a path using the custom-rules-path to point only to the rule(s) needed from the default set.
Otherwise, testing for all default rules present in source will likely yield a false or fail result in most cases.
Usage: dotnet AppInspector.dll tagtest [arguments] [options
Arguments:
-s, --source-path Required. Source to test (required)
-t, --test-type (Default: rulespresent) Test to perform [rulespresent|rulesnotpresent]
-r, --custom-rules-path Custom rules path
-i, --ignore-default-rules (Default: true) Ignore default rules bundled with application
-o, --output-file-path Path to output file
-x, --console-verbosity Console verbosity [high|medium|low
-l, --log-file-path Log file path
-v, --log-file-level Log file level
dotnet AppInspector.dll tagtest /home/user/project1 -r /home/user/myrules.json
dotnet AppInspector.dll tagtest /home/user/project1 -r /home/user/myrules.json -t rulespresent
dotnet AppInspector.dll tagtest /home/user/project1 -r /home/user/myrules.json -t rulesnotpresent
Simple export of the ruleset schema for tags representing what features are supported for detection
Usage: dotnet AppInspector.dll exporttags [arguments] [options]
Arguments:
-r, --custom-rules-path Custom rules path
-i, --ignore-default-rules (Default: false) Ignore default rules bundled with application
-o, --output-file-path Path to output file
-x, --console-verbosity Console verbosity [high|medium|low
dotnet AppInspector.dll exporttags
dotnet AppInspector.dll exporttags -o /home/user/myproject/exportags.txt
dotnet AppInspector.dll exporttags -r /home/user/myproject/customrules -o /hom/user/myproject/exportags.txt
Verification that ruleset is compatible and error free for import and analysis
Usage: dotnet AppInspector.dll verifyrules [arguments]
Arguments:
-r, --custom-rules-path Custom rules path
-i, --ignore-default-rules (Default: false) Ignore default rules bundled with application
-o, --output-file-path Path to output file
-x, --console-verbosity Console verbosity [high|medium|low
dotnet AppInspector.dll verifyrules
dotnet AppInspector.dll verifyrules -r /home/user/myproject/customrules -i
Building from source requires .NET Core 3.0. Standard dotnet build commands can be run from the root source folder.
dotnet build -c Release
dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x86
dotnet publish -c Release -r linux-x64
dotnet publish -c Release -r osx-x64