Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) is a security testing methodology that identifies vulnerabilities in running applications by simulating real-world attacks from an external perspective. Unlike static testing that examines code, DAST tests applications during runtime to uncover security flaws that only appear when the application is fully operational.
DAST operates as black-box testing, meaning it evaluates applications without knowledge of their internal code structure. This approach enables DAST to detect runtime-specific vulnerabilities, configuration issues, and integration problems that static analysis typically misses.
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How does DAST actually work?
DAST integration typically occurs during the testing phase of application development, after static analysis tools have completed their code-level security checks. This timing ensures that DAST can evaluate the fully assembled application with all components integrated and running.
DAST involves multiple steps:
1. Discovery
In this phase, an application is scanned to find the entry points or the interfaces that allow a user to interact with the application. Think APIs, forms, UI, or URLs. All of these entry points will be tested in the next step.
2. Simulation
Once the application interfaces are identified in the discovery phase, the application is exposed to different kinds of attacks like SQL injections, cross-site scripting (XSS), runtime memory leaks, cross-site request forgery (CSRF), privilege escalation, server configurations, and TLS issues. DAST tools try to run these attacks and make efforts to get access to critical parts of the application.
3. Analysis
Once simulations are performed, the outcomes for these attack simulations are analyzed to determine if there are vulnerabilities present or not.
4. Reporting
In the reporting phase, DAST tools present any identified vulnerabilities and suggest tools and potential fixes. Reporting can be integrated with your organization’s communication channels to alert teams as soon as a vulnerability is found.
All of these steps together make a complete DAST scan, and reports are a jumping-off point for investigations and remediations, empowering your teams to strengthen your system’s security posture.
SAST vs. DAST
To recap, dynamic application security testing (DAST) is a penetration testing technique that assesses an application's security posture without analyzing its underlying code. Instead of inspecting the codebase, DAST focuses on running and interacting with the software using known attack vectors.
For example, DAST tests an HTTP server by sending requests embedded with potential exploits to check if the application is vulnerable. Since DAST doesn't examine the code itself, it's language-agnostic and is effective no matter the programming language or technologies used, making it versatile across different platforms.
DAST detects runtime-specific vulnerabilities that static analysis cannot identify because they only manifest in running applications:
Server configuration issues: Misconfigured web servers, databases, and third-party services
Integration vulnerabilities: Problems arising from component interactions and data flows
Authentication and session flaws: Login bypasses, session hijacking, and access control failures
Network-level exposures: DDoS susceptibility, internal data leakage, and protocol weaknesses
While DAST scanning takes longer than static analysis, this comprehensive testing approach identifies critical security gaps that code-level scanning misses entirely, as Tide discovered when they reduced their vulnerability discovery time and warned teams about OpenSSL vulnerabilities before technical details were even announced.
On the other hand, SAST comes before DAST during development and CI/CD pipelines. SAST analyzes the source code itself and can be executed very early in your DevSecOps pipelines. With SAST, the code is analyzed to find patterns that can be potential issues. SAST can also be paired with fuzzing for more comprehensive results.
DAST vs. IAST
IAST, or interactive application security testing, is a combination of SAST and DAST methodologies that can add more value to your security testing. IAST analyzes the source code for vulnerabilities and also executes part of the code to identify issues and monitor its behavior in real time. IAST analyzes runtime by adding instrumentation to measure important metrics at different code points, helping to both identify security issues and indicate the severity of the problem.
DAST use cases and implementation timing
DAST is most effective when applied at specific stages of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and for particular security objectives. Understanding when and where to use it helps maximize its value.
When to use DAST in the SDLC
DAST is best suited for later stages of the development process, once an application is fully built and running. Common implementation points include:
Staging and QA environments: Before deploying to production, run DAST scans in a staging environment that mirrors production. This allows you to find and fix vulnerabilities without impacting live users.
Production environments: Regularly scheduled DAST scans on live applications help detect new vulnerabilities introduced by updates, configuration changes, or newly discovered threats. Wiz's Cloud Attack report found exploitation of public-facing apps often leads to web shells and persistent access, with attacks appearing within days of PoC release.
Common DAST use cases
Web application and API security: DAST is highly effective at identifying common web vulnerabilities, such as those listed in the OWASP Top 10, including SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and broken authentication. Wiz's Cloud Data Security Snapshot found 4% of environments have misconfigured HTTP/S endpoints exposing sensitive data.
Third-party component testing: Since DAST does not require source code, it is ideal for testing the security of integrated third-party services, libraries, and APIs where you have no visibility into the underlying code.
Compliance and auditing: Many regulatory frameworks, like PCI DSS, require regular vulnerability scanning of running applications. DAST helps fulfill these requirements by providing evidence of security testing.
In modern cloud-native environments, DAST is one part of a larger security strategy. A unified platform like Wiz provides the runtime visibility needed to contextualize DAST findings. By connecting a vulnerability to its cloud configuration, network exposure, and permissions, teams can prioritize the risks that truly matter and understand the full attack path.
Benefits of DAST
DAST provides real-world attack validation by testing applications exactly as malicious actors would, identifying exploitable vulnerabilities that pose genuine threats to your organization.
Key advantages of implementing DAST:
Runtime vulnerability detection: DAST identifies security flaws that only exist when applications are running and processing real requests:
Session management weaknesses and authentication bypasses
Server configuration vulnerabilities and protocol misconfigurations
Third-party service integrations and API security gaps
Critical runtime exploits like Log4Shell and injection vulnerabilities
Language-agnostic testing: DAST tools don't have to understand the coding language you used to build your application—they can identify and exploit any vulnerabilities, no matter what. This makes DAST implementation easier, streamlining your testing workflows.
Third-party testing: You can test your dependencies for any issues via DAST tools. (Since it doesn't have to understand the internal workings and needs only interfaces to start evaluation, it's easy to use DAST on your third-party tools!)
Real attack behavior: DAST's biggest strength is the nature of its "attacks." The simulations that DAST tools perform are very close to the actual behavior of attackers.
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Limitations of DAST
Though DAST is a great option for testing, it does come with some downsides:
False positives in security testing: DAST can trigger a lot of false positives, creating significant work for teams, although some modern template-based tools are designed to improve accuracy, leading to zero false positives.
Slow detection: DAST is very slow compared to its counterpart, SAST, and may take a lot of time to detect issues, making your deployment cycles longer.
Opposite of shift left: The shift-left approach of SAST saves a lot of time, but DAST is basically the opposite. You can start DAST analysis only after your application code is complete, built, and deployed. Because it comes after deployment, identifying and routing remediation of issues to the relevant development owners is a lengthy process.
No code insight: Since DAST has no visibility into the code itself, there can be issues that DAST misses. That’s why SAST is also very important, and it’s a good idea to use both of them and not just rely on one.
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Popular open-source DAST tools
There are many popular open-source tools you can leverage for DAST analysis. Here are a few that are in continuous development:
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| OWASP ZAP | ZAP, or Zed Attack Proxy, is one of the most popular DAST tools. It can be easily integrated into your CI/CD security pipeline to analyze the behavior of your application. ZAP has a major community backing it, can perform other security testing like SAST, and can carry out code reviews as well. |
| Wapiti | Wapiti is another very popular open-source tool for scanning web applications. It covers a wide array of attacks, including some advanced attacks like TLS misconfigurations and Shellshock. (Note that Wapiti doesn’t have a GUI and is more suited to scheduled scans than real-time testing.) |
| Vega | Vega is also a free, open-source tool for dynamic application testing. Vega has APIs and GUI, which makes it user friendly. The downsides? Vega has limited support for modem JavaScript applications and can struggle with CI/CD integration. |
| w3af | w3af is billed as a complete ecosystem for auditing web applications. It comes with a lot of helpful features—from notification channels to reporting and alerting. w3af’s drawbacks are a lack of a GUI and limited support for C/CD. |
| Burp Suite | Burp Suite is used widely for security scanning and testing. Burp Suite is available as a community offering as well as a paid version. (With the paid version, you can get some extra automated scanning features.) For better control and ease of use, Burp Suite offers a GUI. Burp Suite boasts a vast number of features and attacks that it can analyze and perform. |
Strengthen your application and SDLC security with Wiz Code
While DAST scans can be time-consuming, they add a lot of value in hardening your application security posture against attacker threats. To maintain the speed and productivity of agile deployment cycles, DAST scans can run directly after deployment and then be repeated in a continuous, asynchronous manner to report any runtime vulnerabilities that might come up.
There's no question that DAST can help you strengthen your security posture after your apps have been deployed, but DAST alone isn't enough. It's best practice to implement a proactive approach to security and perform a comprehensive set of scans during build time (first-party code, third-party code, infrastructure, and pipeline security settings) in order to ensure that you're not leaving your systems exposed to threat actors, and that's where Wiz Code comes in.
Wiz Code offers real-time security feedback to developers, enriched with cloud insights, directly in the IDE and pull requests. This helps developers anticipate the impact of vulnerabilities and exposed secrets once their code has been deployed and proactively remediate their most impactful application security issues in code.
Wiz Code also connects to code repositories and CI/CD pipelines, scanning the entire application stack and SDLC security posture, from third-party code dependencies and license compliance issues to container images, IaC templates, and the settings of VCS and CI/CD pipelines themselves so that you can detect vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, compliance issues, sensitive data, exposed secrets, and malware.
Using Wiz Code in combination with one of Wiz's SAST integration partners, such as Checkmarx, Cycode, or Jit, gives security teams complete visibility and control over their application security posture from build time to runtime—with no siloed tooling or gaps in coverage.
Want to see for yourself how Wiz Code can protect everything you build and run from code to the cloud? Request a demo to explore how Wiz can secure your cloud environment.
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