Differences Between SAST vs. DAST vs. SCA for DevSecOps: How To Choose The Best One

Confirming to the most recent Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report states that nearly 90% of data breaches are driven by financial profit, up from 71% in the report of the previous year. The highly notable point is that cloud platforms are particularly at risk, with a 43% increase in web application attacks. Security teams should consider how security measures must be included in DevOps without affective productivity as more data is put into cloud infrastructures and as more businesses depend on web applications to ensure business continuity.

However, acronyms and buzzwords can obscure the service industry. With the rise of automated security testing tools like SAST, DAST and SCA, it is critical to understand the distinction between each of these procedures and when to use them in the development cycle.

Importance Of DevSecOps

Application security is seamlessly integrated into DevOps and agile processes through DevSecOps. So, when security problems arise, it is easier and quicker to fix them, that too at least expense.

The rise of cloud platforms, dynamic provisioning and resource sharing has resulted in a rapid pace of application development. With the implementation of DevOps, development cycles have become quicker and more frequent. Iteration has been done within the duration of weeks or a few days. DevSecOps enables developers and security engineers to leverage the power of agile methodologies.

DevSecOps provides numerous benefits to businesses and developers throughout the product lifecycle:

• Security integration into DevOps speeds up iterations.
• DevSecOps helps in the development of high-quality products avoiding compliance issues.
• It enables developers to think critically, comprehend security needs, and design the software properly from the start.
• It helps reduces cycle time by eliminating the manual configuration of security consoles.
• Security functions, including firewalls, vulnerability, identity and access management can be automated throughout the DevOps cycle.
• Vulnerabilities are discovered early, reducing the risk of cyberattacks.
• Improves team collaboration and communication.

What Is Static Application Security Testing (SAST)?

Static application security testing (SAST) is an AppSec assessment that tests and scans applications systematically without actually running them. It typically sits in the earlier stage of the SDLC so developers can check security vulnerabilities before the application is completed. It generally targets source code, byte code and binary code. Static application security testing is a proactive approach to fixing flaws rapidly as it provides real-time security feedback while developing. The systematic approach help reduces technical debt at least price. 

On the other side, fixing all the flaws discovered by a SAST scan can be a waste of time and resources that doesn’t always lower your risk. Without the proper training, it can be challenging to identify which detects are instantly exploitable or to comprehend how the attack might occur because the scan doesn’t run in a running context.

What is Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)?

In contrast to SAST, dynamic application security testing (DAST) is carried out from the outside (black box testing) box and finds flaws while the application is in use. In order for DAST tools to find web service endpoints, inputs and outputs and crawl web pages, an application must be in a usable state. The dynamic analysis provides accurate results by stimulating penetration testing to find exploitable flaws and problems with business logic issues from a hacker’s point of view without having to look at the source code.
However, because this scanning happens at the end of SDLC (while the apps are running), the results can be significant and often increase the pressure on DevOps teams to fix these runtime vulnerabilities on short notice, causing conflict between the security and development teams. The risk that vulnerabilities could be discovered too late in the software development life cycle (SDLC), leading to hurried or delayed remedy, is one of the DAST’s additional drawbacks.

What Is Software Composition Analysis (SCA)?

For businesses that rely on open-source software for some or all of an implementation, Software composition analysis (SCA) tools can be used to automatically identify the vulnerabilities in whole container images, packaged binary files, and source code. SCA tools are useful for managing licensing, finding best practices, and integrating them.

Difference Between SAST vs DAST vs SCA

SAST choices analyze the application’s binary or source code, which means that most, if not all, SAST tools depend on a specific language. Never do they need to run the application. SAST tools are regarded as white-box techniques because they are aware of an application’s internal implementation.

Developers can use SAST tools as soon as they’re prepared to push their work to the main branch because they only require the source code or binary. Consequently, by implementing DAST in an environment that closely replicates the production environment, security vulnerabilities can be identified at an early stage in the software development life cycle (SDLC), leading to significantly reduced costs.

Key features:

• High-quality technology and methods for deep code analysis and vulnerability detection are readily available.
• Comprehensive, evidence-based reports on the identified vulnerabilities and suggestions for fixing them.
• A wide range of programming languages are supported.
• Compatibility with version control, bug tracking, and development environments.

Pros	Cons
Developers can use SAST tools as soon as they’re prepared to push their work to the main branch because they only require the source code or binary.	They might be a little noisy while bringing attention to the potential problems.
By identifying and addressing security vulnerabilities early in the development process, SAST helps reduce the overall security risk of the application.	False positives can cause developers to disregard SAST warnings if you’re incorporating them into your SDLC; conversely, not detecting issues may cause developers to lose faith in SAST.
SAST analyzes the entire codebase, including all components and libraries, providing a comprehensive view of potential security weaknesses.	Certain options could be slow in SAST as a result of thoroughly testing your product from the inside out.

Dynamic application security testing (DAST) examines an application as it runs to find flaws and weaknesses that a malicious party could exploit. DAST is considered to be a black-box method since the tools do not know (nor do they need to know) how the application was constructed.

To bring the DAST best in use, bring it to an environment that matches your production environment as much as possible. Because DAST options run the application, you can only use DAST options on applications that can, well, run. As such, fixing the vulnerabilities identified by a DAST tool can be costly (though one way to minimize such costs can be to release patches for critical vulnerabilities).

Key features:

• All publicly accessible assets can be discovered using the DAST solution.
• A DAST tool’s capacity to crawl the target apps and recognize every application input will determine how accurate and comprehensive the findings it generates are.
• DAST solution that offers actionable vulnerability reports to assist developers in resolving problems without lengthy, one-sided conversations with security teams.

Pros	Cons
DAST generates less false positives than SAST because it doesn’t search the entire application.	DAST only examines the inputs and outputs of the system.
DAST is the only security testing approach that is independent of programming language.	Even using automated testing techniques, the need to run and utilise the programme might slow down the testing process.
DAST keeps regressions in check. If a security flaw is identified and successfully reproduced, it can be automated.	If, for any reason, you can’t automate the execution and usage of an application, you’ll have to completely remove the DAST check and do it manually.

Software composition analysis (SCA) is another common security tool, a code-scanning tool that focuses solely on the third-party and open-source components you’re using to build your application.

Key features:

• It helps to set and enforce policies
• It keeps on monitoring for security and vulnerability flaws to manage workloads and boosts productivity.
• Users can produce actionable alerts using SCA for recently found vulnerabilities in both active and shipping goods.
  

Pros	Cons
SCA enables organisation to find potential security flaws in their open-source components so they can fix them before the flaws are used against them.	As they are not listed in the vulnerability database or because the tools are not set properly, genuine vulnerabilities may go unnoticed by SCA tools.
SCA can assist businesses in complying with regulations and industry standards that acquire them to manage the security of their software.	Organizations risk developing a false sense of security if they rely only on SCA to find and fix issues.
By automating the process of finding and addressing vulnerabilities, SCA can free up developers to concentrate on other value-adding tasks, including developing new features and repairing problems.	SCA tools may struggle to manage complicated software architects or systems with several interconnected components, making it challenging to identify all potential vulnerabilities.

How To Select The Best Tool For DevSecOps

As we’ve demonstrated in this blog, there are several methods available for managing application security threats in the CI/CD pipeline, making it hard to conclude which is the best choice to safeguard your applications. To maximise your application security controls, it is crucial to understand how each Application Security Testing (AST) tool should be utilised throughout the development lifecycle.

What makes DevTools an ideal choice as your DevSecOps partner?

Modern organisations demand a reliable mechanism for code review and vulnerability detection that does not hinder the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

Through the human detection of software vulnerabilities that various automated code scanning technologies may overlook, Devtools can substantially assist the security of DevOps.

Devtools makes use of the expertise of over a million ethical security specialists to find complicated code flaws. Organisations can fasten the release of digital products with greater assurance by integrating Devtools early in the SDLC because they know that security specialists have accessed their software applications throughout development.

This strategy enhances the overall security of the application environment while making the best use of priceless DevOps resources.

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