DAST's Essential Role in SSDLC: Detecting Runtime Vulnerabilities Missed by Static Tools
The article examines how Dynamic Application Security Testing fits into the Secure Software Development Lifecycle, highlighting its unique ability to analyze running applications in their deployed environment. It contrasts DAST with SAST and SCA, noting that only DAST observes actual HTTP responses, server configurations, and exploitable behaviors after deployment. Real-world examples include misconfigured Caddy web servers exposing .env files and .git directories, as well as chained vulnerabilities in TrueConf Server 5.5.0 that enable unauthenticated remote code execution. Detailed comparisons on OWASP Juice Shop demonstrate PT BlackBox achieving higher coverage of authenticated API endpoints compared to ZAP, uncovering SSRF and XXE issues through successful exploitation proofs. The piece stresses the importance of comprehensive crawling for SPAs, proper authorization handling, and clear scan termination rules to integrate DAST effectively into CI/CD pipelines. A checklist for proper DAST integration concludes the discussion, emphasizing coverage metrics and reproducible findings.
HabrOct 30, 2026Translated from Russian