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Open wide, Node.js! NodeSource will certify you now
Testing and ongoing checkups
NodeSource has offered to clean up Node.JS with a program certifying modules as “safe.”
The three-year-old company Thursday announced the release of NodeSource Certified Modules, which it promised would deliver “rigorous analysis” of 400,000 modules using a certification algorithm from proprietary code.
Certified Modules will evaluate packages in a registry and calculate a trust score. The company will monitor certified modules on an on-going, paid-for basis.
NodeSource chief executive Joe McCann in a statement said that Certified Modules would “take the pain” out of choosing Node modules, with certification showing which modules are safe, secure and reliable.
The question for NodeSource will be how much the wider developer world and Nodeiverse choose to place their faith in the ratings service of a single, small startup. NodeSource cofounder Dan Shaw, at least, has worked on Node.JS startups and claims experience building production services using Node.
Since its first mature release in 2009, Node.js has gone from strength to strength, with users today including Netflix, Mozilla, NASA, MasterCard, Uber and PayPal.
Node.js’ relative newness means it must quickly come up to speed in areas of security now taken for granted by other platforms. Also, the fact that it’s growing so fast means that common mistakes and vulnerabilities can be rapidly passed around the web and quickly embedded in new systems.
There already exists the standard crop of tools to identify problems such as code bugs and security vulnerabilities. In April 2016, the newly released Node Security Project went a step further, marrying the continuous lifecycle idea of devops with security.
Node Security Platform is a paid-for set of set of continuous security products and services that include tooling, plug ins, security assessment, and code pull requests. The service integrates with your Github pull request flow. ®