Binary Software Composition Analysis (SCA): What It Is and How It Works
If traditional AppSec tools fall short in securing your connected products, how do you mitigate vulnerabilities and ship your products with confidence?
Larry Pesce
VP of Services
TL;DR: Binary software composition analysis (SCA) inspects compiled software, the firmware you actually ship, to identify its open-source and third-party components, known vulnerabilities, and license risks. Unlike source-based SCA, it needs no source code, which makes it the only reliable way to see inside embedded devices and supplier binaries. The shipped binary is the source of truth.
Traditional application security tools were built for applications. Point them at a connected device and they miss most of what matters, because a device is not a single program. It is a stack of firmware, an operating system, kernels, drivers, and third-party components, much of it supplied as binaries you never wrote and cannot read as source. So the real question for anyone shipping connected products is simple: how do you find and fix the risks hiding in code you did not write, before those products reach customers? Binary software composition analysis is the answer.
What is binary software composition analysis?
Binary software composition analysis is the process of inspecting compiled software, not source code, to identify its open-source components, known vulnerabilities, and license risks.
It extends the idea behind regular software composition analysis to the compiled world. Where standard SCA reads dependency manifests and source files, binary SCA works on the finished artifact: executables, shared libraries, and full firmware images. That matters because most connected products ship as binaries, and the components inside them, the ones that carry real security and licensing risk, are invisible unless you analyze the binary itself. Binary SCA can do this regardless of the underlying hardware or instruction set architecture.
How does binary SCA work without source code access?
Binary SCA analyzes the compiled binary directly, matching its components against databases of known software, vulnerabilities, and licenses, so no source code is needed.
The analysis can be static, dynamic, or both. Static analysis breaks the binary down into its lower-level parts without running it, fingerprinting the open-source and third-party components inside and identifying versions, licenses, and configurations. Dynamic analysis runs the binary in a controlled environment to watch its behavior. The identified components are then matched against vulnerability databases such as the National Vulnerability Database to surface known CVEs. Because none of this requires source code, binary SCA works on supplier software, proprietary binaries, and legacy systems where source is simply not available.
What is the difference between source code SCA and binary SCA?
Source code SCA scans human-readable code during development; binary SCA scans the final compiled build, so it catches whatever actually shipped, including supplier code.
Both have a place, but they answer different questions. Source SCA tells you about the code your developers wrote and the dependencies they declared. Binary SCA tells you what is actually in the product. For a deeper treatment, see our comparison of source code versus binary analysis.
| Dimension | Source code SCA | Binary SCA |
|---|---|---|
| What it scans | Human-readable code and dependency manifests | The final compiled build (executables, firmware) |
| When it runs | During development, in the pipeline | At or after the build, on the shipped artifact |
| Source code needed | Yes | No |
| Sees supplier and third-party binaries | Rarely | Yes |
| Works on embedded firmware | Poorly or not at all | Yes, purpose-built |
| Main limitation | Misses code pulled in later or supplied as binaries | Requires specialized analysis engines |
Why is the shipped binary the source of truth?
The shipped binary is the source of truth because CI/CD pipelines pull in code at many stages, leaving source-built SBOMs usually incomplete or inaccurate.
This is the core of the case for binary SCA. A modern build pipeline has many jobs and dependencies, and code enters at different stages, some of it from suppliers as pre-built binaries. An SBOM generated from source captures intent, not the final result. Analyzing the final build closes that gap and gives you a ground-truth inventory of what you are about to ship. Trust your vendors, but verify the binary for yourself.
What are the benefits of binary SCA for supply chain security?
Binary SCA reveals the third-party and open-source code inside supplier binaries you cannot otherwise see, exposing inherited vulnerabilities and license risks before you ship.
When you ship a product, you ship every risk you inherited from upstream: known vulnerabilities in embedded components, and legal exposure from unknown, undisclosed, or expired licenses. Binary SCA produces a comprehensive software bill of materials so you can manage those risks before they reach customers. This is also why regulators increasingly expect one. CISA's SBOM minimum elements guidance frames the SBOM as the foundation of software supply chain transparency, and the EU's Cyber Resilience Act makes maintaining one a legal requirement for connected products. You can read more in our overview of software supply chain security.
How is binary SCA used for IoT and firmware security?
For IoT and firmware, binary SCA analyzes the device image, including the OS, kernel, drivers, and board support packages that app-focused source tools cannot read.
Devices differ from apps in ways that break traditional tooling. An app is a single program; a device holds an entire ecosystem of programs, often with thousands of configuration files, plus bootloaders, OS components, and drivers. Many embedded devices ship as a real-time operating system or a bare-metal image: one large monolithic binary with every component statically compiled into a single file. Only purpose-built binary SCA can pull that apart. Beyond components, it also surfaces the device-specific weaknesses that matter most.
| What binary SCA uncovers | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Open-source and third-party components | Inherited known vulnerabilities and license obligations |
| Kernels, drivers, OS components, BSPs | The parts app-focused tools never see |
| Hard-coded credentials and keys | Backdoors an attacker can use directly |
| Cryptographic material | Weak or exposed secrets and algorithms |
| Insecure configurations | Settings that quietly widen the attack surface |
What should you look for in a binary SCA tool?
Look for a tool purpose-built for embedded systems that analyzes the final build, handles firmware across architectures, produces an accurate SBOM, and prioritizes exploitable risk.
The market includes app-focused scanners that added a binary feature and platforms built for embedded from the ground up. The difference shows up fast on real firmware. A few criteria worth weighing: does it analyze the shipped artifact rather than just source, does it handle monolithic RTOS and bare-metal images across instruction set architectures, does it combine component discovery with custom-code analysis instead of needing separate products, and does it help you focus on what is actually reachable and exploitable rather than dumping every CVE on your team. That last point is where exploitability-based prioritization turns a long list into a short, actionable one.
How Finite State does binary SCA
Finite State built its platform to expand SCA into the binaries developers were previously forced to accept at face value. It sees inside the third-party components within embedded firmware and connected products, ties them to known vulnerabilities and supply chain risks, and lists them in an accurate SBOM, all before you ship. Because the analysis runs on the final build, it serves as the ground-truth source of record for what is really in your product, covering both component discovery and custom code in one place.
Binary software composition analysis is not a checkbox at the end of the line. It is how you ship connected products with confidence, knowing what is inside them and what to fix first. To see what binary SCA can do for your firmware, request a demo.