Leverage Generative AI Code

Generative AI coding assistants are a game-changer. FossID enables your developers to take advantage without increasing your copyright and license compliance risks.

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Balancing Speed, Innovation and Business Risk

Software engineers are moving faster than ever with the adoption of AI coding assistants. But with that acceleration comes a new challenge: unknowingly introducing open source code without full visibility into its origins, license obligations, or security posture.

FossID’s industry-leading code snippet detection is built to help engineers stay productive without compromising compliance, security or intellectual property integrity.

Mitigating Risk

Navigating the Legal Landscape of Open Source Code

The reliance on open source code for training these AI models introduces pressing concerns about license compliance and security. The potential for generative AI to inadvertently copy code verbatim from open source repositories makes accurate, reliable snippet scanning crucial for adhering to open source licenses and identifying any specific vulnerable code that might have been replicated.

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Exploring Use Cases and Compliance Scenarios

Consider these three distinct use cases:

AI-Exclusive Code
When the AI generates completely original code, there are no open source license obligations, granting companies the liberty to use and distribute the code freely.
Hybrid Code
In instances where the output is a mix of AI-generated and open source code, it’s imperative to identify the open source components to comply with their respective licenses.
Pure Open Source Code
If the AI provides a snippet that’s entirely copied from an open source repository, it’s clear that companies must adhere to the specific open source license.

Ensuring Open Source License Adherence

For AI-generated code that incorporates open source snippets, it’s essential for companies to fulfill the associated license obligations. This includes pinpointing the open source code utilized, comprehending the license terms, and satisfying requirements such as attribution and source code distribution, while avoiding any compatibility issues with other code.

As generative AI continues to shape the future of software development, it’s crucial for companies to remain vigilant about open source license compliance and the security of their codebases.

Expert AppSec Guidance

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Find Vulnerable Code Snippets

With the adoption of AI coding tools, more and more third-party code is integrated directly within source code or unwittingly forked, making typical dependency analysis tools less effective for vulnerability management. You need precise vulnerable snippet detection without false positives to be confident in your application’s security posture.

Learn More About Vulnerable Snippet Finder

Key Capabilities

To successfully manage security and compliance risks associated with code created by Generative-AI coding assistance, look for the following capabilities.

Code Snippet Detection

Find even the smallest fingerprint of copy-pasted open source code across all your codebase.

Ingest & Generate

Comprehensive OSS Database

Audits leverage our massive knowledgebase of curated OSS intelligence for license compliance and security.

Ingest & Generate

CI/CD Integration

Total control over Workbench to build custom workflows that Scan, Gate, and Notify.

View All Capabilities

How FossID Code Snippet Detection Works

1

Scan Your Source Code or Repositories

Start by running a FossID scan on your local project directory, Git repo, or your build artifacts. This can be done via:

Workbench UI: Upload your project manually
CI/CD Integration: Automatically scan your code with each build (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab, GitHub Actions)
API or CLI: For scripting or bulk operations

This scan compares your code against FossID’s curated knowledge base of 200M+ open source components, including code-level data and metadata.

2

Detect Reused and Modified Code Snippets

AI coding assistants often generate code without license headers or clear attribution. FossID doesn’t rely on that.

Instead, FossID uses code fingerprinting and deep snippet analysis, matching code fragments even when:

Variable names are changed
Comments are stripped
Structure is modified

If you pasted a sorting function, regex pattern, or utility class suggested by your AI assistant, FossID can trace it back to known open-source origins.

3

Understand Licensing and Obligations

Once a snippet is flagged, FossID tells you:

The original open source component and version
The license (e.g., MIT, GPL, Apache 2.0)
Whether there are copyleft or attribution requirements
If the usage violates your own open source usage policies

This is critical if you’re working in proprietary, embedded, or dual-licensed environments where certain licenses may be problematic.

4

Act with Confidence

After detection, you have options:

Instead, FossID uses code fingerprinting and deep snippet analysis, matching code fragments even when:

Replace the snippet with an alternative (i.e. internal code or a permissively licensed libraries)
Document and attribute the open source use properly
Refactor to remove risky fragments altogether

FossID Workbench also generate audit-ready Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) and compliance reports to satisfy legal, security, and M&A requirements.

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Ideal Integration Points

FossID is flexible and gives you options to use the Workbench web application, command line interface, CI/CD integration, or API to build custom workflows. Common ways to leverage FossID software composition analysis scanning include:

During code reviews or PRs (pre-merge scanning)
On every build in your CI pipeline
Before release milestones
During security/compliance sprints

Adopt AI Coding Assistants with Confidence

As an engineer, you shouldn’t have to choose between speed and safety. FossID lets you:

Continue using AI coding tools productively
Identify even the subtlest traces of open source code
Make informed, compliant decisions quickly

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Talk to a Software Supply Chain Ninja

Book a discovery call with one of our experts to discuss your business needs and how our tools and services can help.

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