Advantages

No Configuration Necessary

Brakeman requires zero setup or configuration once it is installed. Just run it.

Run It Anytime

Because all Brakeman needs is source code, Brakeman can be run at any stage of development: you can generate a new application with rails new and immediately check it with Brakeman.

Better Coverage

Since Brakeman does not rely on spidering sites to determine all their pages, it can provide more complete coverage of an application. This includes pages which may not be ‘live’ yet. In theory, Brakeman can find security vulnerabilities before they become exploitable.

Limitations

False Positives


Only the developers of an application can understand if certain values are dangerous or not. By default, Brakeman is extremely suspicious. This can lead to many “false positives.”


Unusual Configurations


Brakeman assumes a “typical” Rails setup. There may be parts of an application which are missed because they do not fall within the normal Rails application layout.


Only Knows Code



Dynamic vulnerability scanners which run against a live website are able to test the entire application stack, including the webserver and database. Naturally, Brakeman will not be able to report if a webserver or other software has security issues.


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Installation

gem install brakeman

group :development do
  gem 'brakeman', :require => false
end

Usage

brakeman

brakeman /path/to/rails/application