Q: Are SAST (Static Application Security Testing) & DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing) automation tools useful in securing web applications against vulnerabilities?
Here are the answers from the SecPro community members on Testing Automation Tools for Web Applications:
Avishek, Data Scientist
Static application security testing (SAST) is a white-box testing methodology. There are a number of clear advantages to using SAST over other security analysis approaches:- No need for a running application in order to provide immediate benefit and eliminates the need to build even a partially functioning version of your product.
While Static Application Security Testing offers many benefits, the most significant is its ability to detect issues and mark their precise location, including the file name and line number. For each detected issue, the SAST tool will indicate its severity and offer a brief description.
On the surface, this ability to pinpoint problems may seem trivial, but finding problems is one of the most time-consuming aspects of a developer’s work. Hence it is useful.
Luca, Security Solutions and Operations
I consider SAST and DAST as a foundation for application security. I’ve no direct experience in deploying and running those tools but only in outcome analysis. Anyway, SonarQube and Burp suite are respectively two valuable examples for the two categories.
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