An Ultimate Guide to Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)

Quick Summary: DAST is a robust method to evaluate your application security and identify vulnerabilities that can help attackers to breach security. It dynamically evaluates application security without touching the internal workings. Learn more about DAST with this article and get a complete understanding of it for a strong security posture.

When you deliver your application to users, there are several factors you need to consider when it comes to data security and protection. With hackers roaming around and finding the opportunity to steal the data, it’s best to safeguard your application and get it through the testing process regularly.

This is where the role of Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) comes in.

Let’s understand what DAST is and how it can help your organization to futureproof your application in the future.

What is Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)?

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) is a process of investigating running applications and finding security vulnerabilities with penetration testing. DAST is a type of black-box testing that checks your application from the outside.

By using DAST, a scanner can identify potential security flaws in your application by simulating hostile attackers and sending requests to it. The scanner then analyses the application's response. Any potential vulnerabilities that arise throughout the test suite of simulated attacks are noted for further review.

When you use dynamic application security testing, the tools you use interact with the application and the source code of API. DAST tools detect vulnerabilities by performing actual attacks, just like a real hacker. In a nutshell, DAST tools perform automated penetration testing of your web applications.

DAST tools can detect and help your web application protect against vulnerabilities like OWASP Top 10. There are some common flaws, which are SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), external XML entities (XXE), and cross-site request forgery (CSRF). DAST tools can simulate these attacks and verify whether the application is vulnerable.

Although vulnerabilities can be found by scanning the source code, the best way to safeguard an application is to determine if an outside attacker can exploit it during runtime, when the entire application and all of its components are running.

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Understanding Black Box Testing: DAST

DAST is a type of back box testing used to check the application's vulnerability from a hacker or attacker’s perspective. Since applications rely on inputs and outputs to function, any suspicion in the user-based input could indicate a comparable response.

DAST testing can assist you in identifying software vulnerabilities, even in the absence of user input. It is intended to operate on the application layer, where the actual applications are vulnerable, rather than on a particular piece of software.

How Does DAST Work?

Dynamic application security testing tools simulate the activities of a black-hat hacker but in a safe manner.

• With the help of a web crawler, the DAST scanner initially uses runtime mapping to map out the application. To accomplish this, it finds every application page, follows every link, and locates every function (for a single-page web application). DAST searches through an API definition document for each entry point available while testing an API.
• After completing the mapping process, the vulnerability scanner has the entire map of the web application. Then, it proceeds to access each input location found, such as a form field or an API parameter, and runs a series of tests on each location. Security checks send data to the web application, which then examines the responses and reactions. The purpose of the test data is to mimic malicious content that a black-hat hacker would send.
• In order to provide the user with the precise location and the obtained response, the DAST scan logs the application responses it receives from one of the checks that indicate or verify a web application vulnerability. This enables a pentester to manually recreate the testing scenario later if required.
• Unlike anti-malware technologies, application testing solutions don’t carry out remediation. Their sole responsibility is to identify security flaws in the applications, including cross-site scripting (XSS) or SQL injection vulnerabilities. Development teams must manually fix all security issues.

What Problems Does DAST Solve?

Dynamic application security testing addresses multiple problems and helps businesses fix them. Let’s check out the critical problems that DAST tools solve.

Assessment of Runtime Vulnerabilities

DAST scans applications while they are working, identifying vulnerabilities that could be exploited during the actual case, like cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and other runtime issues.

Identifying Misconfigurations

Dynamic application security testing enables organizations to capture misconfigurations in web servers and app environments that increase the chances of vulnerabilities in them.

Uncovering Security Flaws in App Logic

Unlike static analysis tools that mainly focus on code, DAST analyses user behavior of the application and assess issues related to application logic.

Verifying Security Measures

DAST examines the effectuality of existing security measures like input validation and authentication mechanisms. DAST tools check the potency of apps by simulating attacks and check how apps respond.

Detecting Issues in Third-Party Components

Many applications use third-party libraries and components. DAST can also assess vulnerabilities in these components as they are deployed within the application.

Providing Real-World Attack Simulation

By imitating actual attacks, DAST helps with a realistic view of how an application might be exploited in the wild. This helps businesses to prioritize and address vulnerabilities that pose critical security threats.

Complementing Static Analysis

DAST complements static application security testing (SAST) by including aspects of security that static analysis can miss out on, such as issues that take place only when the application is running.

Importance of DAST in Modern Application Development

When you test your application during the development phase, it will not protect your app from potential breaches during the production phase. Therefore, developing a varied application security program is essential to mitigate overall business risks. Identifying possible attack vectors and stopping them from being used by combining DAST with other strategies is feasible.

Overcoming the following challenges with DAST, your organization can:

• Report vulnerabilities accurately based on the state in which the application is running.
• Encourage developer education by offering practical solutions to security issues.
• Easily integrate security testing into the SDLC.
• Improve the efficacy of your DevSecOps operations by incorporating DAST input into your SecOps and DevOps tools.
• Better code protection and application security.
• Provide quality vulnerability assessment reports to speed up remediation.

We can conclude that DAST is included as part of CI/CD Pipeline, that’s referred to as “Secure DevOps” or “DevSecOps”.

Advantages of DAST

DAST offers numerous advantages for overall app security. A DAST security tester's ability to attempt to hack an application while it is operating as an attacker would be one of its main advantages. Some further benefits of DAST are as follows:

Technology Independent

DAST is platform and language agnostic as it doesn’t rely on source code. Users can run a single DAST tool on all applications because particular technologies and languages do not restrict it.

Finds Additional Configuration Issues

Due to its focus on identifying operational security vulnerabilities and attacks from the outside, DAST is a good tool for finding configuration errors that other AST tools could miss.

Lesser False Positives

DAST has a lower false positive rate and less noise than other application security testing tools, according to OWASP’s Benchmark Project.

Disadvantages of DAST

While DAST has many advantages, there are also certain drawbacks of DAST you should consider.

Inability to Scale

Effective testing is essential to DAST, and security experts are needed to write them. Since frequently few experienced resources are available, scaling DAST becomes extremely challenging.

Less App Visibility

DAST cannot provide thorough security coverage or insight into problematic code for remedial reasons because it cannot view the application’s code base.

Longer Time to Scan

DAST scans can take a long time – up to 1-2 days, according to Forrester. Earlier in the software development life cycle (SDLC), when vulnerabilities are more costly and time-consuming to address, DAST checks frequently miss them.

Vulnerability Location

Since DAST solutions can’t access the source code, it can help you identify the existence of the vulnerability within the application. Hence, it will not provide the exact location within the codebase.

Code Coverage

DAST is used to evaluate the running application. That means it will not display or showcase the vulnerabilities in parts of the code that are not executed.

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Types of DAST

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) is categorized into two types:

1. Automated DAST
2. Manual DAST

Automated DAST

The testing tool automatically performs a DAST application scan using crawlers and the primary URL. In order to identify any critical vulnerabilities, the tool will also audit and monitor the entire web application. Each page that is accessed within the application is recorded, along with the server's response to the request.

Although it can slow down the primary application or website, the automatic DAST can also be configured to check for brute force and denial of service attacks. Therefore, the application owner typically permits denial of service and brute force testing.

Manual DAST

Manual DAST comes into the picture when automated DAST fails to detect vulnerabilities. Generally, automated DAST cannot address business logic vulnerabilities because the automated scan is not customizable for each application. Therefore, manual DAST is used.

Here, the tester must have a good understanding of the application that is being tested, and they must then design test cases based on different scenarios that a malicious user can breach. The request sent to the server can be genuine, and proxy tools manually record the response that the server sends back. Because of this, application-specific manual DAST can find essential vulnerabilities, which automated DAST can’t find.

The Role of DAST in Application Security (AppSec)

The role of Application Security Testing (AST) is to automate the process of testing, analyzing, and reporting security vulnerabilities. While considering DevSecOps, AST tools play an integral role, aiming to shift security left and add security scans to each stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

AST tools are categorized into four types:

SAST – Static Application Security Testing: It comes with white-box testing, which analyzes the source code while its components are at rest.

DAST – Dynamic Application Security Testing: It provides black-box testing that analyzes how applications are attacked from the outside.

IAST - Interactive Application Security Testing: It gives the application code instrumentation. Finding and reporting issues during runtime is the primary aim of IAST.

SCA – Software Composition Analysis: It analyzes open source software components and scans the code for vulnerabilities while verifying license compliance.

Difference Between DAST vs SAST

While talking about DAST vs SAST, by attacking an application like a malicious user would, DAST targets the application from the "outside in." Following these attacks, a DAST scanner searches for results outside of the anticipated result set and detects security flaws.

On the other hand, SAST scans static environments, which are an application's source code. It examines the application from the "inside out," looking for coding flaws.

In fact, SAST and DAST are complementary approaches to application security. Following are the primary differences between DAST and SAST.

Test Type: DAST is a type of black-box testing with no knowledge required for the application’s internals, whereas SAST is a type of white-box vulnerability scan with full access to the application’s source code.

Requirement for Code Maturity: SAST systems can operate on partially coded applications since they can scan source code. DAST solutions demand more advanced code because they can only analyze running applications.

Phase of SDLC: Unlike DAST, which needs an active application, SAST can be used earlier in the SDLC due to its capacity to analyze source code.

Remediation Cost: Compared to DAST, SAST analysis occurs earlier in the SDLC, so fixing any vulnerabilities found is less expensive. While talking about DAST, there may be more code that needs to be repaired later in the SDLC, and there will be less time to do it.

Vulnerability Coverage: Because code is not executing during SAST analysis, DAST solutions are able to detect runtime vulnerabilities and configuration issues that SAST solutions are unable to.

Location of Vulnerability: Since SAST solutions scan source code, they are able to pinpoint the precise location of vulnerabilities within applications. Whereas DAST cannot identify a specific line of code; it can only identify the existence of a vulnerability.

False Positive Detections: By interacting with an application, DAST makes it possible for it to ascertain whether a potential vulnerability genuinely affects how an application function. SAST has a greater rate of false positives and only operates using an app model.

Four Steps to Implement DAST Successfully

Adding DAST to your testing pipeline is more complicated than adding SAST because it depends on your application running. DAST can be automated, but only after the automated portion has been scripted or recorded. This requires some essential steps after including a DAST tool in your pipeline.

1. Connect with Your Users

The first step to implementing DAST is to understand how your users use your application. Instead of recording the entire roadmap or user journey, understand what they are doing and why they are navigating.

When using an application, users often forget what they're actually clicking on because repeated interactions become automatic. Although it helps the users concentrate on their tasks, clicking on something and then forgetting about it doesn't always ensure that it can’t lead to an issue.

2. Automate User Interactions

The next step is to automate the user’s actions using automation tools. This could be a simple and easy endeavor for API and CLI applications. However, it’s possible for all types of applications as well.

3. Add the Test-Scripts to Your CI/CD Pipeline

Once the automated interactions for the most crucial use cases are in place, you may run these scripts against your application while a DAST tool scans it. You can begin patching your security vulnerabilities after the initial DAST run.

4. Include Tests for Regression in the Testing Suite

You might include particular usage scripts in your test suite in case you discover security flaws in the regular usage of your application. This guarantees that the problems won't recur later on.

How Can ZeroThreat - DAST Tool Help?

ZeroThreat, a Dynamic Application Security Testing tool, stands as a sentinel against cyber threats, empowering organizations to fortify their digital defenses. This cutting-edge DAST solution provides a comprehensive assessment of web applications, systematically scanning for vulnerabilities that may expose systems to malicious exploits.

ZeroThreat – the best DAST tool offers unparalleled security insights by simulating real-world attack scenarios, ensuring a robust evaluation of a system's resilience. Its dynamic scanning capabilities meticulously analyze web applications during runtime, identifying potential issues in code, configuration, or design.

Benefits of Using ZeroThreat

• Easy, accessible reports that you can analyze on your dashboard.
• Collaborate with developers directly from the dashboard.
• 5X time to scan the entire application.
• Low code test automation tool, which can also be used by non-technical persons.
• ZeroThreat gives an intelligently calculated risk score for each vulnerability.
• Comprehensive testing process to ensure no vulnerability is left behind.

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Improve Application Security with DAST

DAST is one of the finest methods and tools to detect a wide range of vulnerabilities. Dynamic application security testing can help you identify flaws before they become a problem or threat.

Therefore, organizations must choose the right DAST tool to implement DAST and integrate it into their SDLC. They must ensure that DAST tools perform regular scanning, act on the results, and generate reports. This will help you secure your web applications from both internal and external threats and attacks throughout the life cycle.

At ZeroThreat, we test software applications to identify bugs, flaws, and vulnerabilities in the runtime environment, providing the proper steps to reproduce and fix issues. With a comprehensive set of dynamic application security testing, we improve your SDLC. ZeroThreat provides the robust solutions and reporting you need to safeguard your web applications.