What is Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)?

What is Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)?

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) is an approach to application security testing whereby an application (typically a web application or service) is analyzed for security vulnerabilities when it is running, using a tool that simulates attacks and observes the application’s corresponding behavior. DAST tools don’t have internal information about the application or its source code; the attacks they simulate mirror what a malicious actor would do when trying to compromise an application whose inner workings are unknown to them.

Why Run Dynamic Application Security Tests?

Modern applications are complex, distributed, and built with a broad range of components, such as open source software. While other types of security scanners like SAST and container scanners are used to detect vulnerabilities within individual elements of the application, DAST tools address the entire running application to assess vulnerability to attacks like SQL injections, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), and more. Since DAST tools are designed to operate in a runtime environment, they can detect runtime flaws which SAST tools can’t identify.

Benefits of Dynamic Application Security Testing

The purpose of DAST is to determine whether the application is vulnerable and if it could be susceptible to a cyberattack. DAST is key to strengthening the overall security posture of modern applications. The feedback produced by a DAST security scanner can be integrated with the security tools and DevOps tools the organization’s DevSecOps practice relies on.

Take Dynamic Application Security Testing to the Next Level With Harness STO

Harness Security Testing Orchestration (STO) is shift-left security built for your CI/CD pipelines and designed for developers. With Harness STO, you can seamlessly integrate application security scanners to orchestrate scans within build and deploy pipelines.

Built-in steps enable you to add DAST scans quickly and with minimal configuration. Harness STO offers the Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) as a built-in DAST scanner, which is ready to run as soon as you add it to your pipeline. 

STO enables developers to rapidly remediate vulnerabilities through intelligent prioritization and deduplication, along with AI-driven remediation guidance.

Learn more about how the Harness Security Testing Orchestration (STO) module can help you shift application security testing left and accelerate vulnerability remediation without toil.