@sectester/runner

@sectester/runner

Run scanning for vulnerabilities just from your unit tests on CI phase.

Setup

npm i -s @sectester/runner

Step-by-step guide

Configure SDK

To start writing tests, first obtain a Bright token, which is required for the access to Bright API. More info about setting up an API key.

Then put obtained token into BRIGHT_TOKEN environment variable to make it accessible by default EnvCredentialProvider.

Refer to @sectester/core package documentation for the details on alternative ways of configuring credential providers.

Once it is done, create a configuration object. Single required option is Bright hostname domain you are going to use, e.g. app.brightsec.com as the main one:

import { Configuration } from '@sectester/core';

const configuration = new Configuration({ hostname: 'app.brightsec.com' });

Setup runner

To set up a runner, create SecRunner instance passing a previously created configuration as follows:

import { Configuration } from '@sectester/core';
import { SecRunner } from '@sectester/runner';

const configuration = new Configuration({
  hostname: 'app.brightsec.com',
  projectId: 'your project ID'
});
const runner = new SecRunner(configuration);

// or

const runner2 = new SecRunner({
  hostname: 'app.brightsec.com',
  projectId: 'your project ID'
});

After that, you have to initialize a SecRunner instance:

await runner.init();

The runner is now ready to perform your tests, but you have to create a scan.

To dispose a runner, you just need to call the clear method:

await runner.clear();

Starting scan

To start scanning your application, first you have to create a SecScan instance, as shown below:

const scan = runner.createScan({ tests: ['xss'] });

Below you will find a list of parameters that can be used to configure a Scan:

Option	Description
tests	The list of tests to be performed against the target application. To retrieve the complete list, send a request to the API. Learn more about tests.
smart	Minimize scan time by using automatic smart decisions regarding parameter skipping, detection phases, etc. Enabled by default.
skipStaticParams	Use an advanced algorithm to automatically determine if a parameter has any effect on the target system's behavior when changed, and skip testing such static parameters. Enabled by default.
poolSize	Sets the maximum concurrent requests for the scan, to control the load on your server. By default, 10.
attackParamLocations	Defines which part of the request to attack. By default, body, query, and fragment.
name	The scan name. The method and hostname by default, e.g. GET example.com.

Endpoint scan

To scan an existing endpoint in your application, invoke the run method with a TargetOptions argument. For TargetOptions details, please refer to this link.

Example:

await scan.run({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://localhost:8000/api/orders',
  body: { subject: 'Test', body: "<script>alert('xss')</script>" }
});

Function scan

To focus on the security aspects of a particular function in your application, you can perform a function-specific scan. This automatically creates an auxiliary target with a POST endpoint under the hood.

Example:

const inputSample = {
  from: '2022-11-30',
  to: '2024-06-21'
};
// assuming `calculateWeekdays` is your function under test
const fn = ({ from, to }) => calculateWeekdays(from, to);

const scan = runner.createScan({ tests: ['date_manipulation'] });
await scan.run({ inputSample, fn });

Scan execution details

The run method returns promise that is resolved if scan finishes without any vulnerability found, and is rejected otherwise (on founding issue that meets threshold, on timeout, on scanning error).

If any vulnerabilities are found, they will be pretty printed to stdout or stderr (depending on severity) by reporter.

By default, each found issue will cause the scan to stop. To control this behavior you can set a severity threshold using the threshold method:

scan.threshold(Severity.HIGH);

Now found issues with severity lower than HIGH will not cause the scan to stop.

Sometimes either due to scan configuration issues or target misbehave, the scan might take much more time than you expect. In this case, you can provide a timeout (in milliseconds) for specifying maximum scan running time:

scan.timeout(30000);

In that case after 30 seconds, if the scan isn't finishing or finding any vulnerability, it will throw an error. The default timeout value for SecScan is 10 minutes.

Usage sample

import { SecRunner, SecScan } from '@sectester/runner';

describe('/api', () => {
  let runner!: SecRunner;
  let scan!: SecScan;

  beforeEach(async () => {
    runner = new SecRunner({
      hostname: 'app.brightsec.com',
      projectId: 'your project ID'
    });

    await runner.init();

    scan = runner
      .createScan({ tests: ['xss'] })
      .threshold(Severity.MEDIUM) // i. e. ignore LOW severity issues
      .timeout(300000); // i. e. fail if last longer than 5 minutes
  });

  afterEach(async () => {
    await runner.clear();
  });

  describe('/orders', () => {
    it('should not have persistent xss', async () => {
      await scan.run({
        method: 'POST',
        url: 'https://localhost:8000/api/orders',
        body: { subject: 'Test', body: "<script>alert('xss')</script>" }
      });
    });

    it('should not have reflective xss', async () => {
      await scan.run({
        url: 'https://localhost:8000/api/orders',
        query: {
          q: `<script>alert('xss')</script>`
        }
      });
    });
  });
});

License

Copyright © 2025 Bright Security.

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.