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Application Security Testing: The Ultimate Guide to Modern AST Platforms and Practices

What is Application Security Testing?

Application security testing (AST) is the process of identifying, managing, and mitigating security vulnerabilities in software applications. The goal of application security testing is to address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by cyber criminals. Using application security testing tools to find flaws early in the software development life cycle (SDLC) helps AppSec and DSevOps teams minimize disruption and mitigation costs.

A study conducted in 2023 illustrates the importance of performing application security testing. Among the findings were the following statistics:

  • 74% of assets containing personally identifiable information (PII) were susceptible to well-known significant exploits
  • 10% of these assets contained easily exploitable weaknesses
  • 70% of web applications exhibited severe security gaps, omitting crucial Web Application Firewall (WAF) protection and essential encryption like HTTPS

In 2024 the average cost of a data breach was $4.88 million. In addition to purely monetary costs, a breach could have a significant negative impact on the organization’s reputation and ability to operate normally for a period, and could affect regulatory compliance. 

It is therefore imperative that any organization involved in developing or deploying applications take all necessary steps to secure those applications — which means starting with software testing early in the SDLC and continuing application security assessments throughout the entirety of the application’s lifecycle.

There are a number of different but compatible application security testing solutions that, when combined, will help practitioners conduct a thorough security analysis   of their application attack surface, including cloud environments, web applications, APIs, and on-prem systems . Some of the most common application security testing methodologies include: 

Static Application Security Testing

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) scans the source code or binaries of an application to discover security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and buffer overflows prior to run time. SAST tools are run during development.

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Dynamic Application Security Testing

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) is a runtime methodology performed during testing, staging, or production. DAST is performed while the application is live by simulating user interactions to discover vulnerabilities such as injection faults, XSS, session management, and improper authentication that might not be visible in static code analysis. Penetration testing, where security researchers probe the system’s defenses as hackers might do, is a form of DAST.

Interactive Application Security Testing

Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) is a combination of SAST and DAST tools to detect a wider range of security weaknesses in both code and application behavior. Because it is performed as the application is used, IAST can provide more accurate and comprehensive findings than either technique alone.

Mobile Application Security Testing

Mobile Application Security Testing (MAST) is also a combination of SAST and DAST focusing on mobile apps. In addition to vulnerabilities uncovered by SAST and DAST, MAST can uncover problems such as jailbreaking, malicious Wi-Fi networks, and data leakage from mobile devices.

Software Composition Analysis

Software Composition Analysis (SCA) identifies open-source components, frameworks, and third-party software and libraries used by the application and scans them for known vulnerabilities. SCA can be performed at any stage of the SDLC.

Runtime Application Self-protection

Runtime Application Self Protection (RASP) monitors application traffic and user behavior at runtime. In addition to identifying vulnerabilities, RASP tools can identify that a weakness has been exploited.

Benefits and Challenges of Application Security Testing

We live in a fast-paced, interconnected world with a constantly shifting digital terrain and attack surface. And new cyber threats emerge as quickly as existing ones are mitigated. Application developers and providers must stay up-to-date and apply all security practices at their disposal to ensure that the use of their applications is safe. But there are some challenges to providing this application security.

Benefits of Application Security Testing

Comprehensive application security testing processes and policies offere benefits that greatly reduce the risks of application exploitation,  enforce and standardize secure development practices, and embed security measures consistently throughout the SDLC. 

  • Reduce overall application costs: AST can reduce overall costs by identifying vulnerabilities before they can be exploited, thereby reducing the risk of suffering a costly breach. 
  • Enhance reputation: Ensuring that applications are free from security issues reduces the risk that the organization’s reputation will suffer due to a breach. Consumers like to know that their data and sensitive information are adequately protected.
  • Demonstrate compliance: Testing for specific vulnerabilities can also demonstrate compliance with security regulations, and may even be required by some regulating bodies. 
  • Decrease time to market: By identifying vulnerabilities early in the development process, organizations can remediate problems early on and decrease time to market without compromising security.
  • Improve security posture: Addressing and managing vulnerabilities helps improve the organization’s overall security posture.

Challenges of Application Security Testing

Challenges to application security largely stem from the numerous types of attacks caused by the complexity of the digital landscape itself and result in an ever-expanding attack surface

  • Complex digital landscape: Applications today are developed and deployed in an increasingly interconnected digital ecosystem, making it difficult to find and fix every software vulnerability in the supply chain. Furthermore, transitive dependencies have to be treated very carefully, even where transitive vulnerabilities are concerned; in the eyes of the business, breaking an application’s functionality may be considered a greater risk than an exploited application.   This added layer of complexity can make AppSec tools difficult to configure for maximum benefit.
  • Lack of adequately trained security personnel: Threat actors are increasingly using automation to speed up the frequency and sophistication of their attacks. Already strained under short-staffed teams and inefficient legacy tooling, security teams are finding it difficult to keep up with the pace of attacks
  • Insufficient security policies and processes: Organizations need to adopt strong security measures and make security a priority from day one of the development process. Organizations would also benefit from promoting a security-first mindset through active security training programs. In 2024, 67% of organizations were concerned that employees lacked fundamental security awareness. 
  • Variety of attack vectors:  Applications can be compromised by numerous and varied techniques such as injection attacks, bot attacks, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
  • Improper security testing: Testing for vulnerabilities once or twice a year or employing only one or two testing methodologies is not sufficient. To be effective, application security testing must be comprehensive and be performed on a regular basis.
  • Inadequate security monitoring and reporting: Discovering a vulnerability or, worse, discovering a breach is only the first step. In 2024 organizations took 204 days on average to identify a breach and an additional 73 days to contain it. AppSec teams must be constantly vigilant in monitoring for vulnerabilities. Reports must be easy to interpret and actionable. And organizations need to have an incident response process so they can address security incidents quickly and efficiently.

What is an Application Security Testing Platform?

An application security testing platform (AST) is a suite or collection of security tools that help organizations protect applications by identifying, assessing, prioritizing, and reporting on potential vulnerabilities in the application, its associated infrastructure, and its runtime environment. A comprehensive application security testing platform’s constituent testing methodologies should include SAST, DAST (including penetration testing), IAST, mobile app security testing, SCA, and runtime app self-protection. Many platforms manage security testing and reporting using a unified dashboard.

How an Application Security Testing Platform helps

Rather than making use of one testing methodology or having to independently implement multiple tools, application security testing platforms combine multiple AST techniques, methodologies, and mechanisms into one unified solution. AST platforms provide a central location from which to manage application security. A platform facilitates the following.

  • Efficiency: A unified solution saves time in identifying and addressing vulnerabilities.
  • Continuous testing throughout SDLC: An AST platform facilitates continuous testing of applications starting early in the development process and continuing through deployment.
  • Seamless integration: The ability to seamlessly integrate security testing into the development and deployment process reduces disruptions to delivery schedules.
  • Single view of application security: The ability to see everything in the pipeline in one view makes it easier for AppSec teams to focus on what matters, and then prioritize and triage the most critical issues first.
  • Enforcement of security policies: Unified reporting can facilitate the development of security procedures and enforcement policies.

Application Security Testing Best Practices

  • Testing early test often: The earlier vulnerabilities can be discovered, the less costly they are to mitigate and the less impact they will have on delivery schedules. Testing throughout the SDLC checks for vulnerabilities that may have been introduced after prior testing.
  • Automated testing: Eliminate manual security testing when possible. Automating tests helps perform security at scale and reduces the impact on delivery schedules. 
  • Triage and prioritization: Security testing can result in large numbers of potential issues and false positives. Maximize AppSec and minimize cost by triaging test results and prioritizing issues that require attention.
  • Comprehensive testing: Applying one testing methodology (e.g., DAST, SAST, etc.) is insufficient. To comprehensively test applications, use as many methodologies as possible, preferably, bundled into one platform to reduce the need for engineers to work across multiple tools and with disparate data that can be hard to correlate and derive actionable sights from.  
  • Continuous monitoring: Running tests is only one phase of app security testing. Testing results need to be monitored and reviewed so prompt action can be taken if a serious vulnerability is identified and needs to be addressed.
  • Employee awareness: Educate developers and other stakeholders on the importance of security testing, not only at deployment, but throughout the SDLC. This includes senior managers who need to understand that security is an integral part of the software development process.
  • Interface testing:  It’s not sufficient to test only the application code and its APIs. Underlying interfaces between components also need to be tested to identify potential vulnerabilities
  • Emphasis on secure coding: Empower developers to use secure coding practices. Reviewing code for compliance with established security practices helps uncover issues at the earliest stage in app development.
  • Periodic security review: Review security policies, processes, and testing results regularly to assess security effectiveness and to look for areas of improvement.

Key Features to Look For in an Application Security Testing Platform

Many application security testing platforms available today provide consolidated, comprehensive application security testing. However, included capabilities differ. AppSec teams need to understand their business’s particular requirements and ensure that the platform they select provides the protection they need. Here are some capabilities that a comprehensive application security testing platform should have.

  • Multiple platform support: Test applications in different languages, running on different operating systems and cloud environments.
  • Pipeline integration: Integrate seamlessly with Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) to test security throughout the SDLC.
  • Customizable security policies: Tailor security policies based on application requirements and relevant compliance standards.
  • Centralized and actionable reporting: Provide a unified dashboard and consolidated reports with actionable results that can be quickly and easily interpreted.
  • Prioritization of vulnerabilities: Categorize results to reduce false positives and to prioritize critical vulnerabilities.
  • Manual testing options: Run tests manually as well as automatically.

Choose OX Security for Your Application Security Testing Platform

At OX Security, we’re on a mission to help organizations focus on the 5% of application risks that truly matter—those that are exploitable, reachable, and impactful. We go beyond traditional application and cloud security tools by focusing on the entire software development ecosystem, not just the infrastructure and application. 

OX Security provides visibility and traceability, contextualized prioritization, and automated response throughout SDLC. The platform empowers organizations to eliminate manual practices and embrace scalable, secure development.

Go here to learn more about the OX security platform.  

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