What does DAST Stand For?

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Updated: December 23rd, 2024
7 mins read
What is DAST

DAST stands for Dynamic Application Security Testing and is a cybersecurity process used to identify vulnerabilities in web applications, APIs, and mobile apps by simulating real-world attacks from the outside. Unlike other security testing methods that require access to the application’s source code, DAST treats the application as a black box, examining it from a user’s perspective.

However, as modern applications become increasingly complex with multiple cloud infrastructures, third-party components, and external dependencies, the risk of cyberattacks also grows significantly. 

By automating security checks, it helps uncover vulnerabilities early in the development lifecycle and prioritize efficiency and collaboration without compromising development speed.

Why Should You Choose DAST?

As the definition suggests, DAST stands for a flexible, black-box approach to application security testing, requiring no access to source code or internal systems, allowing you to assess applications built on any technology stack. They help streamline security efforts by prioritizing and detecting critical CVEs, allowing you to focus on the most pressing issues and save valuable resources.

Modern DAST scanners integrate seamlessly into the software development lifecycle (SDLC), enabling early vulnerability identification during development to minimize the risk of costly breaches and delays. Additionally, providing evidence of security testing, they help you meet standards like HIPAA and GDPR to reduce legal and financial risks.

Most importantly, they can provide real-time feedback through continuous monitoring and instant alerts about new vulnerabilities to empower your teams to respond quickly, preventing potential exploitation and strengthening security. As such, some key benefits include:

Importance and Benefits of DAST

Scope of DAST

The process typically covers web applications, APIs, and, increasingly, mobile applications. While it excels in identifying vulnerabilities like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF), insecure direct object references (IDOR), and more.

As such, a related contract outlines the specific services and deliverables the vendor provides. This includes the applications to be tested, the methodology, the format of reports, and the level of remediation guidance offered. Contract terms, including what DAST stands for in the given context, cost, timeline, and service level agreements, are also essential components.

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Why Astra is the best in pentesting?

  • We’re the only company that combines automated & manual pentest to create a one-of-a-kind pentest platform.
  • Vetted scans ensure zero false positives.
  • Our intelligent vulnerability scanner emulates hacker behavior & evolves with every pentest.
  • Astra’s scanner helps you shift left by integrating with your CI/CD.
  • Our platform helps you uncover, manage & fix vulnerabilities in one place.
  • Trusted by the brands you trust like Agora, Spicejet, Muthoot, Dream11, etc.
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Types of Dynamic Application Security Testing

Manual DAST

While automated software vulnerability scanners and penetration testing tools are invaluable in securing applications, they cannot fully replace the human element. Manual dynamic scanning leverages the expertise of security professionals to identify vulnerabilities that automated tools often miss. 

By combining their knowledge with hands-on testing, these experts can uncover hidden flaws and strengthen application security.

Automated DAST

Automated Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) involves using software to interact with applications dynamically. 

By employing techniques like crawling, fuzzing, and regular expression-based input manipulation, dynamic testing tools can uncover vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and server-side request forgery.

What DAST Stands For and its Process

Dynamic application security testing or DAST process

The process begins with a thorough assessment of the attack surface, where we analyze its functionality, architecture, and components to identify potential entry points — whether they’re web interfaces, APIs, or mobile app endpoints.

Secondly, the tool methodically scans and crawls the application, simulating real-world user behavior to help uncover its functionalities and reveal security vulnerabilities due to its structure or behavior.

While it doesn’t actively exploit these vulnerabilities, it simulates attacks using advanced algorithms and attack patterns to identify various CVEs like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and insecure object references.

Finally, it generates comprehensive reports detailing the identified vulnerabilities and their severity and suggested remediation strategies. Moreover, along with step-by-step instructions for recreating them, they simplify remediation with POC videos.

How Can Astra Help?

While automated scanners excel at detecting easily identifiable vulnerabilities, they often overlook more complex threats. Astra’s Pentest combines the power of automation with human expertise to provide a comprehensive DAST security solution. 

Astra pentest dashboard - DAST

Leveraging insights from over 10,000+ automated tests, our DAST stands for unparalleled accuracy. Beyond vulnerability detection, Astra quantifies potential financial losses, prioritizes risks, and provides actionable remediation steps, empowering teams to secure their applications efficiently.

Astra Pentest is built by the team of experts that helped secure Microsoft, Adobe, Facebook, and Buffer


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The Strategic Benefits of DAST

1. Shift from Just-Compliance

DAST stands for more than just compliance; it’s about building confidence in your runtime environment. Simulating real-world attacks helps engineering teams prioritize exploitable vulnerabilities over theoretical ones. Thus, treating DAST as a simulation tool, not just a scanner, bridges the critical gap between potential threats and real-world risk.

2. Navigate API Security

APIs dominate modern application architectures, and DAST must keep pace. It’s not just about identifying vulnerabilities; it’s about adapting to high-velocity, ephemeral environments like microservices. Leaders should prioritize DAST solutions aligned with CI/CD workflows to secure APIs before they’re deprecated or changed.

3. Maximize Operational Efficiency

Its ability to simulate attacker behavior in live environments reduces false positives, streamlining response efforts and offering a cost-effective way to scale security without increasing team workloads. CTOs must choose platforms that use AI to rank vulnerabilities by risk, turning data into actionable insights.

4. Enhancing Resilience in CI/CD Workflows

Its role in DevSecOps goes beyond flaw detection to ensure iterative hardening during rapid development cycles. Known for aligning with secure velocity by integrating actionable insights into sprints, as a CXO, you should measure its success not by speed but by its ability to complement and enhance rapid iteration.

5. Build a Threat-Aware Culture

DAST stands for fostering a threat-aware culture. Showing engineering teams how vulnerabilities manifest in live environments builds a deeper understanding of attacker methods and turns secure coding from theory into practice. Thus, its most significant value lies in improving security IQ across the organization.

Common Roadblocks with DAST

1. Blind Spots in Non-Traditional Architectures

DAST struggles with complex setups like client-heavy SPAs (Single-page applications) or serverless environments, where much of the logic resides outside traditional server interactions. These blind spots can create a false sense of security, with critical vulnerabilities going undetected.

2. Overloading DevOps Pipelines

Integration into CI/CD workflows often introduces delays, especially when tests are extensive or poorly optimized. This friction can lead to pushback from development teams, undermining security buy-in for the process and the strategy.

3. Contextual Misalignment with Threat Models

It identifies vulnerabilities without always aligning them to an organization’s unique threat model. This causes prioritization issues, where effort is wasted on low-risk vulnerabilities while critical ones are overlooked.

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DAST vs. SAST

FeatureDAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing)SAST (Static Application Security Testing)
DefinitionAnalyses a running application to find vulnerabilitiesAnalyses source code without executing the application
Testing ApproachBlack-box testingWhite-box testing
RequiresRunning the application in a test environmentSource code or compiled binaries
Timing in SDLCLater in development or productionEarly in development
Vulnerability DetectionIdentifies runtime vulnerabilities, exploits, and security misconfigurationsFinds logic flaws, coding errors, and potential vulnerabilities
AdvantagesFinds real-world vulnerabilities, complements SASTEarly detection, fast feedback, high code coverage
DisadvantagesSlower, resource-intensive, might miss logic flawsHigh false positive rate, limited runtime analysis
Common Vulnerabilities FoundSQL injection, XSS, CSRF, authentication issues, session management flawsSQL injection, XSS, buffer overflows, insecure cryptography
IntegrationCan be integrated but is less commonOften integrated into CI/CD pipelines
Example ToolsBurp Suite, OWASP ZAP, AppScanCheckmarx, SonarQube, Veracode
Ideal Use CaseFinding exploitable vulnerabilities in production-like environmentsEarly vulnerability detection, code quality improvement

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, DAST stands for pinpointing, analyzing, and prioritizing vulnerabilities in web and mobile applications. It offers a variety of additional benefits, including independence from tech, simplified integrations with the CI/CD Pipeline, concentrated scanning, real-time feedback, and enhanced compliance posture.

Divided into 5 stages, the black-box pentest can be automated and performed by humans; however, the ideal is a way that combines both.

FAQs

What does a DAST scan do?

DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing) is a cybersecurity process used to identify vulnerabilities in web applications, APIs, and, most recently, mobile apps by simulating real-world attacks from the outside.

What are the benefits of DAST?

Here are some of the benefits of DAST scanning:
1. Dynamic testing: Such scans are carried out on real-time production environments that mimic real-world behavior.
2. Less False Positives: Dynamic scans provide accurate results and comprehensive test coverage for your applications. If any false positives are present, the scanners detect them.
3. Early Identification: Its automated tests help identify vulnerabilities early because the application mimics live-world behavior.
4. Black-Box Level: Since dynamic application security testing works on a black box level with no prior information sharing, it can find problems missed in earlier testing, such as authentication or configuration issues.

Which tool is used for DAST?

Astra is an online solution that combines the power of automation and human experience to run 9300+ dynamic application security tests on web applications and API endpoints to detect various types emerging and existing vulnerabilities ranging from SQL injections and XSS to simple misconfigurations.


Additional Resources on Security Testing

This post is part of a series on Security Testing. You can
also check out other articles below.