Common Application Security Testing (AST) Tools in DevSecOps#

You may incorporate numerous technologies into DevSecOps pipelines to detect security flaws at different phases. Application security testing (AST) tools are one example of these technologies. This blog page will provide you various tools that you can utilize for your different analysis needs in DevSecOps.

Application security testing (AST) tools#

AST tools are critical for application development since they automate the testing, analysis, and reporting of security vulnerabilities. We can categorize application security testing into four main branches in vulnerability scanning:

Static application security testing (SAST)#

SAST analyzes a program before it is actually built. It provides solutions for programmers with real-time information while they are coding. This is a huge benefit allowing developers to resolve errors without moving on to the code build process. SAST tools can achieve this benefit because they do not need a running application during the coding process. Here are some tools you can utilize for static application security testing: SonarQube, PHPStan, Coverity, Synk, and CodeScan.

Now let’s look at how we can utilize dynamic application security testing tools.

Dynamic application security testing (DAST)#

DAST tools detect security problems by imitating exterior attacks on your program while it is executing. It tries to break into your program by scanning its public APIs for weaknesses or defects. Here are some popular DAST tools you may want to implement during the course of testing your application: OWASP ZAP, Netsparker, Detectify Deep Scan, StackHawk, Appknox, HCL AppScan, GitLab.

Interactive application security testing (IAST)#

IAST is distinguished by the use of monitoring to obtain security information and diagnostics straight from running code. In this context, we can make a quick difference between the tools we covered till now. IAST differs from SAST which scanning source code. IAST also differs from DAST because does not scan HTTP. AS we have covered, IAST tools reveal weaknesses in live time (which is also referred to as dynamic testing or runtime testing). You can also employ IAST tools to perform automated functional tests. Here is some tool you can benefit from in interactive application security testing: GitLab, CxSAST, InsightAppSec, Acunetix, Netsparker, HCL AppScan, and Burp Suite.

Software composite analysis (SCA)#

Software composite analysis’s main function is to assess the safety, licensing conformity, and coding standards of your open-source software or projects in a repository. SCA also tries to discover common flaws inside your project’s external dependencies. You can utilize the following tools for software composite analysis: OWASP Dependency-Checks, WhiteSource, Synk, Black Duck, and GitLab

Conclusion#

DevSecOps CI/CD assures us that code has been evaluated against the company defense strategy. It also aids in avoiding hardware and software failures given the diverse security settings in subsequent deployments. DevSecOps supports agility and security at size without slowing down DevOps innovation.

After reading this blog article, now you are aware of the numerous tools that you can employ in your DevSecOps pipeline for vulnerability testing and real-time code scanning technologies.

See also

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