What is Code Review and Which Tools used for it

Developers generally are in a hurry to write codes as they want to meet deadlines. A balance between quality and time is needed for secure code development. Also, there is a need for a quality assurance process to review the developer's code and find security bugs. Generally, vulnerabilities have been found and exploited by bad guys. So to prevent this event, code review is one answer.

What is Code Review?

Code review is a process by which experts search for errors in the software code. Both software developers and cybersecurity experts do this work. Now we will discuss some of the issues while writing codes. Unsanitized input is one such issue while reviewing the source code. To resolve this issue, document all input types for fields, forms, and other input types. Also, allow only a specific number of characters or numerals which are needed by the field. You can take an example of an area pin code; an area code length is always fixed, allowing only those numbers of numerals. Cross-site scripting (XSS) and Cross-site Request Forgery (XSRF) are other issues if allowing unsanitized input. Make a thumb rule of validating input before storing it in the database to prevent XSS. Check authentication should be protected and/or encrypted to prevent XSRF. Error and Exception Handling should be proper and not display inside information while giving error messages.

How can we perform a Code Review?

Code Review can be performed manually, or with automated tools, or usually, both are used to perform this task. Manual code review is sometimes not possible because it has been seen mostly that the length of the code is in thousands of lines, and many developers develop it. So, it is not possible to check the code for errors manually. Automated tools generally follow the set rules and examine the entire code. In other words, we can say code review checks the software code for issues related to issues such as memory leaks, buffer overflow, or scalability. Code Review also helps in finding logical errors in the software code. You can refer to the 50 Point Checklist for Secure Code Review.

Tools available for Code Review

Here is the list of tools available for code review:

1. Gerrit - Free and web-based
2. Rietveld - Free web-based code review tool for Subversion
3. Crucible - Paid tool to review code and identify defects across SVN, Git, Mercurial, CVS, and Perforce
4. Barkeep - Free code review tool
5. Review Assistant - Paid peer code review tool
6. Code Striker - Free and open-source online code review
7. Code Review Tool
8. Malevich - Free and open-source web-based code review for Perforce, TFS, etc.
9. Codebrag
10. Veracode
11. Collaborator - peer code review tool
12. Peer review plugin
13. Codifferous
14. Phabricator -  web-based software development code review tools
15. RhodeCode - support Mercurial, Git and Subversion
16. Review board - free web-based collaborative code review tool
17. Code Analysis Tool
18. JArchitect - Java static code review tool
19. Reviewale - GitHub code review tool
20. OWASP Code Crawler - open-source code review tool supports .NET and Java language

Conclusion

Code Review is a hard-earned skill that requires a lot of hard work and dedication. You can refer to different OWASP, NIST, MITRA, etc., guides to review code.