Understanding DAST and Its Impact on DevSecOps

Dynamic Application Security Testing, commonly known as DAST, is a security process that tests a web application from the outside in by simulating cyber-attacks against it. It’s designed to identify potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious users. Unlike static analysis, which examines code at rest, DAST evaluates the application in its running state, interacting with it just as an attacker would. In this article, I am going to be discussing more on this. It is part of my series — I am a dummy, enlighten me.

Key Features of DAST:

• Independence from source code: It does not require access to the application’s source code.
• Real-time analysis: It analyzes the application in its live, running state.
• Identification of vulnerabilities: It can find issues like SQL injections, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), and more.

However, DAST also has its limitations, such as not pinpointing the exact location of vulnerabilities within the code and requiring security knowledge to interpret the results.

The Impact of DAST on DevSecOps

DevSecOps integrates security practices within the DevOps process. The inclusion of DAST in the DevSecOps pipeline brings several benefits: