What is DAST? There are testing methods that the software developers use to search for security vulnerabilities in an existing application. They go on to stimulate malicious behavior to figure out grey areas that can be exploited. It mimics the same form of attacks as an external hacker may try but there is no need to understand the internal structure of an application.
The sophisticated version of DAST tools can undertake complex scans for preventing flaws in the form of security breaches like DDos attacks, SQL injections, CSS, and a lot more. Though it is a powerful tool for cyber-security it cannot be used till the end of the software development cycle as it is operating a running build of an application before it will work.
During the development phase and when an application is ready, a single DAST approach may perform penetration testing, or API testing to deduct the abnormalities. These issues that are detected can be put in spring before testing. The DevSec ops tend to address all these issues before the software is pushed to the public.
The benefits of DAST
Since DAST is known to detect a malicious form of user behavior, it indicates how a business application is operational in a live environment. The necessary risks are prevented so that the possibility of a future attack may not arise. Such a methodology helps to uncover problems that the development team may have thought of difficult to accomplish. You will be really surprised to figure out how many attacks took place since there was no one to block an attack.
Hackers would love to exploit a security flaw as soon as possible and keep their presence intact that the security team may not notice. The moment someone realizes someone has committed a breach, the damage is done. Such attack may take the form of a system online or it can be an insider causing damages when they leak out sensitive information or they may encrypt the data and hold it for ransom.
DAST is known to outline problems which other forms of testing may not. Problems in the form of authentication issues or server configuration, along with obstacles when a user has logged into a website. Since these methods are known to test at the black box level there is no need to rely or care about the source code. They can test into any application and outline problems that are missed by the other tests like server and authentication issues. It ensures compliance with the regulatory form of reporting.
The points to guard against DAST
To a large extent DAST helps in detecting security issues, there are a few drawbacks that one should be aware of. A major drawback is DAST tends to rely on security experts to develop the right type of security procedures. There is a strong possibility that it may develop false-positive results, which is known to recognize things that are false positive. Since false-positive results go up, the test reliability goes down.
Another drawback with DAST is that it only indicates there is a problem. But it is not in a position to identify the problems within the code itself. With DAST on its own, the developers should easily know when to fix problems on their own. The focus is on requests and responses that may miss a great deal of flaws that is part of the architectural design.
DAST is known to run at slow pace, taking weeks to complete the test. Since it is known to occur late in the software development cycle for the development team it can accomplish a lot of tasks. Even it may take weeks or months to be done with the testing. The moment problems are identified most of the members with the project cycle suffer an impact. Though in some of the cases the developers may have to backtrack a bit, with the older code before they can end up making unnecessary risks.
Software vulnerabilities and the various types
Cybercrime appears to be a bad game, and the hackers are going to use every trick in the trade to get past the security system. There are some proven and tested methods that the developers would love to prefer that give them an idea to figure out malicious bebehaviorLet us understand some of the main points of attack
The oldest form of attack is SQL and happens to be a dangerous web application vulnerability. They are known to target vulnerable user inputs within a web page or an application for the execution of malicious SQL security issues that may access an entire SQL database. They can be used to access sensitive secrets. Such a type of exposure may be applicable to any web application or website
Hackers are known to rely on DDOS that infiltrates by an application to overload it with traffic and disrupt services. It is in the form of an artificial jam that would make it really difficult for people to get around. Such a form of attack is known to target banks and it is not going to require a lot of coding knowledge and scripting to get around it.
On all counts, it is better to opt for a combination of the best of DAST and SAST so as to optimize the process of testing. The latter makes sure that the code is compliant with the standards that you adopt and employ. With the aid of DAST it is possible to outline runtime behavioral vulnerabilities that is possible to uncover with SAST. When it is the case of DAST there are multiple methods of testing that is used like API, and integration that goes on to ensure a secure application.
SAST is something that can be undertaken as soon as the application process starts. It looks at the source code itself to have an idea about the vulnerabilities which may point to security flaws.
