Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)

What is Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)?

Dynamic application security testing (DAST) is a “hands-on” approach to examining an application’s security by observing how it behaves when actually running. It simulates real-world attacks, identifies gaps static application security testing (SAST) can miss, and provides a critical runtime perspective.

While SAST analyzes code to catch flaws earlier in development, it doesn’t account for how an app behaves in production or staging. Over-reliance on SAST can lead to blind spots where runtime configurations, environment variables, or logical flaws go undetected.

Compared to traditional SAST approaches that analyze an application’s source code to identify vulnerabilities, DAST solutions interact with the live application by simulating real-world attacks and monitoring the results. This added visibility flags hidden misconfigurations, environment-based issues, and other dynamic vulnerabilities that might never appear in static scans.

A Real-World Example of DAST

DAST is often considered a more reactive approach to finding vulnerabilities in deployed applications than SAST. However, pairing DAST with a proactive application security posture management (ASPM) strategy helps teams discover these runtime risks sooner and fix them faster.

Here’s a typical scenario illustrating what DAST looks like in action:

A large retailer is gearing up to launch a new checkout system. They deploy it to a staging server and run DAST.
The DAST tool sends various simulated attacks to the checkout pages, including SQL injection payloads.
Everything works fine until the tool detects certain inputs (like discount codes) can trick the database into leaking sensitive customer data.
This vulnerability stayed hidden during code reviews and static scans, but real-world testing uncovered it.
By layering ASPM on top of DAST findings, the security team was able to trace the risk back to its location in the code and identify the active code owner, who patched the issue and embedded guardrails to catch similar runtime issues earlier in future releases.

The previous example demonstrates how DAST findings can be combined with proactive security efforts like ASPM. ASPM capabilities, such as Apiiro’s Deep Code Analysis (DCA) and code-to-runtime matching, help developers discover and address security risks early in the software development life cycle (SDLC) as well as tie runtime findings back to specific code for more targeted, efficient remediation.

Key Features of Dynamic Application Security Testing

Live Interaction with Deployed Apps	Automated Attack Simulation	CI/CD Pipeline Integration
DAST tools interact directly with a running instance of the application. That could be staging or production environments (though running in production requires caution). Since DAST focuses on actual conditions, it finds subtle vulnerabilities overlooked by static analysis alone.	Many DAST testing tools simulate common attack methods like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), command injection, and cross-site request forgery (CSRF). By mimicking an attacker’s steps, DAST can expose runtime flaws that static analysis never sees, especially when combined with an ASPM-driven focus on prioritizing critical paths and business logic.	DAST can be added to an automated CI/CD workflow to run scans after each deployment or code change. When combined with ASPM, these scans feed contextual insights back to developers, helping teams fix issues long before they reach users.
Integration with Other Security Measures	Reporting and Remediation Guidance	Broad Coverage of Dynamic Weak Points
DAST can be used with other tools to enhance security. For example, results from DAST scans can feed into an ASPM solution, which then categorizes and prioritizes risks. This integrated approach aligns runtime alerts with code-level insights, giving security and dev teams a unified view of potential threats.	DAST solutions generate reports that outline discovered vulnerabilities and risk severity. With ASPM in place, those reports tie back to code owners, architectural contexts, and the potential business impact, streamlining remediation and making fixes stick.	Because DAST looks at the application from an attacker’s perspective, it often finds overlooked flaws like misconfigured servers, insecure endpoints, or flawed authentication. This real-time view complements the “design and develop” emphasis of ASPM, creating a layered security approach.

Common Vulnerabilities Detected by Dynamic Application Security Testing

An effective DAST solution can surface a wide variety of vulnerabilities, including:

Runtime and Environment-Based Issues: DAST focuses on issues that appear only when code interacts with real configurations and data flows, providing a dimension SAST lacks.
Injection Attacks: DAST is adept at spotting injection-based flaws. This includes SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and path traversal. These attacks try to manipulate how the application processes input data, which can lead to unauthorized access to data and systems.
Authentication and Session Management Problems: DAST often flags broken login mechanisms or session misconfigurations. If an app doesn’t terminate sessions correctly or handles cookies insecurely, DAST techniques can usually uncover these oversights.
Server and Configuration Vulnerabilities: DAST may reveal missing or misconfigured security headers. It can also spot areas where the server reveals too much information, such as version details or sensitive file paths.
Logical Flaws: Advanced DAST solutions simulate user flows to spot business logic errors. This is important if you’re leaning on ASPM to prioritize what matters most.

How Does DAST Fit Within a Broader Security Strategy?

DAST is only one part of a layered security approach. Other methods like SAST and software composition analysis (SCA) catch code-level issues earlier. But DAST confirms how the application behaves under stress in real or staging environments, adding coverage SAST alone can’t provide.

ASPM ties these threads together by automatically mapping your entire software architecture, from code to runtime. That context helps teams proactively target high-risk areas and validate their fixes using DAST scans. It’s a continuous cycle where ASPM ensures no vulnerabilities slip through while DAST verifies the security posture in real-world conditions.

Leveraging DAST alongside ASPM can process DAST’s findings and show developers exactly where and why a risk exists.

Related Content: What is SAST?

Common DAST Testing Tools

A wide range of DAST testing tools are available, both open source and commercial. These typically run automated scans and produce a DAST report for security teams to review.

Here are a few popular open-source DAST tools you can use:

OWASP ZAP: A free, open-source DAST tool that focuses on scanning live web applications for known vulnerability patterns. It’s widely adopted by security teams and penetration testers.
Nikto: Another open-source web server scanner that checks for outdated components, default files, and other known issues. It’s not a full platform solution, though. It only automates basic security checks on live sites.
Arachni: An open-source framework used to find security flaws in modern web apps. It automates the discovery of vulnerabilities like SQL injection and XSS without going too deep into developer workflows or risk management features.
W3af: A Python-based web application attack and audit framework that can identify common vulnerabilities. However, it doesn’t handle code-level reviews or provide integrated governance.

While these tools can be powerful, try combining them with ASPM for the best results. After all, ASPM provides architectural context and prioritization so you can quickly filter and fix the most critical findings.

DAST Best Practices

DAST tools are helpful, but getting the most out of them requires careful planning.

Here are some best practices to help you run effective scans, prioritize results, and quickly fix any issues you surface.

Integrate DAST Into Your ASPM Program: Make DAST a key part of your overall ASPM strategy. By feeding DAST findings into ASPM, you add context, prioritize faster, and ensure discovered issues don’t get ignored.
Test in a Controlled Environment: Run dynamic application security testing in a safe space that mimics production. Use a staging environment to minimize disruption to active users.
Automate Where Possible: Automate DAST scans in your CI/CD pipelines to boost security posture and find issues early. Adding DAST to your CI/CD pipeline enables consistent scans.
Combine with Proactive Solutions: Pair DAST with ASPM to achieve both reactive and proactive coverage.
Prioritize and Remediate Quickly: Use DAST to address critical risks first while your ASPM platform tracks longer-term fixes.
Carefully Review Reports: DAST reports contain valuable data. ASPM correlates this data with code ownership, libraries, or services to accelerate root-cause analysis.

By combining DAST with ASPM, teams unify runtime insights with proactive design and development practices.

ASPM provides continuous mapping of software architecture and risk, while DAST confirms whether real-world behavior aligns with those risk assessments. This synergy ensures vulnerabilities are prevented early and caught if they ever sneak through, ultimately delivering a stronger, more resilient security posture.

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