Dynamic application security testing (DAST) is a critical security measure for modern software delivery pipelines. It involves evaluating the security of web applications by actively testing them in real-time, simulating real-world attacks to identify vulnerabilities. As the cybersecurity threat landscape has evolved, DAST has emerged as a key tool for enforcing application security in continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.

Static application security testing (SAST) involves analyzing source code to identify and address potential security vulnerabilities. Using SAST early in development identifies threats before they can affect a live environment. SAST is particularly important for continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. These pipelines automate the integration of new code changes into the main codebase and deploy applications to production environments.

Neglecting security is a rookie mistake. However, DevOps teams struggle to make it a priority in the quest to be continuously faster. Protecting your app from the ground up is challenging, so you need the right tools to improve your debugging process in development and production. To enhance security testing, developers can use SAST tools, which analyze program source code to identify security vulnerabilities, and DAST tools, which come up in later development phases in a running application.