Tutorial: Your First Security Scan

Time: 10 minutes
Level: Beginner

Learn how to run your first security scan with Alprina.

What You’ll Learn

Installing Alprina CLI
Running a security scan
Understanding scan results
Generating reports
Getting fix suggestions

Prerequisites

Python 3.8 or higher
pip package manager
A code project to scan

Step 1: Install Alprina

Open your terminal and install Alprina:


pip install alprina-cli

Verify the installation:


alprina --version

Step 2: Create Test Files

Let’s create some files to scan. Create a new directory:


mkdir alprina-demo
cd alprina-demo

Create a vulnerable Python file:

app.py


# Vulnerable code example
import os
 
# 🚨 Hardcoded secret
API_KEY = "sk-1234567890abcdef"
 
def get_user(username):
    # 🚨 SQL injection vulnerability
    query = f"SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = '{username}'"
    return db.execute(query)
 
# 🚨 Debug mode enabled
DEBUG = True
 
if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(debug=DEBUG)

Step 3: Run Your First Scan

Scan the file:


alprina scan app.py

You should see output like:


🔍 Starting scan on: app.py

⚠ Found 3 issues

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Severity   ┃ Type            ┃ Description            ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ HIGH       │ Hardcoded Secret│ API key in source code │
│ HIGH       │ SQL Injection   │ Unsanitized user input │
│ MEDIUM     │ Debug Mode      │ Debug enabled          │
└────────────┴─────────────────┴────────────────────────┘

Step 4: Generate a Report

Create a detailed HTML report:


alprina report --format html

The report will open automatically in your browser showing:

All vulnerabilities found
Severity ratings
Code locations
Fix recommendations

Step 5: Get Fix Suggestions

Get AI-powered mitigation advice:


alprina mitigate

Alprina will suggest fixes like:


🛠️  Mitigation Suggestions

1. Hardcoded Secret (HIGH)
   Location: app.py:5
   
   Fix: Store secrets in environment variables
   
   # Instead of:
   API_KEY = "sk-1234567890abcdef"
   
   # Use:
   API_KEY = os.getenv("API_KEY")

2. SQL Injection (HIGH)
   Location: app.py:9
   
   Fix: Use parameterized queries
   
   # Instead of:
   query = f"SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = '{username}'"
   
   # Use:
   query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = ?"
   cursor.execute(query, (username,))

Step 6: Fix the Issues

Update your code based on the suggestions:

app.py


# Fixed code
import os
 
# ✅ Secret from environment
API_KEY = os.getenv("API_KEY")
 
def get_user(username):
    # ✅ Parameterized query
    query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = ?"
    return db.execute(query, (username,))
 
# ✅ Debug from environment
DEBUG = os.getenv("DEBUG", "False") == "True"
 
if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(debug=DEBUG)

Step 7: Verify the Fixes

Run the scan again:


alprina scan app.py

You should now see:


🔍 Starting scan on: app.py

✅ No issues found!

Congratulations!

You’ve successfully:

✅ Installed Alprina
✅ Run a security scan
✅ Understood the results
✅ Generated a report
✅ Fixed vulnerabilities

Next Steps

CI/CD Integration - Automate scanning
Security Policies - Custom rules
Advanced Scanning - Power features

🛡️ Build fast. Guard faster.