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DAST

What It Is, How to Use It, & the Benefits You'll Gain?

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DAST

What It Is, How to Use It, & the Benefits You'll Gain?

DAST: What It Is, How to Use It, & the Benefits You’ll Gain?

Introduction

DAST is a common term used in the world of cybersecurity. That is, in a nutshell, what this article will explain. What does it mean, and more importantly, how can you profit from it? This blog post will get to all of those questions and more. We’ll start with a definition of DAST, then discuss some of the benefits of using this type of testing. Finally, we’ll show you how to do DAST testing for your own business.

What Is DAST?

DAST is short for Dynamic Application Security Testing. It’s the process of testing an application that is already being unlike static application security testing (SAST), which checks apps before they’re deployed. Organizations typically use DAST after their web applications have been launched and are in use by customers. 

The goal of DAST is to find potential flaws in the current application. These vulnerabilities can then be fixed before attackers exploit them. Because DAST occurs while the application is being used, it can find more vulnerabilities than SAST. This makes it an essential part of any organization’s cybersecurity toolkit.

DAST Benefits

Benefits of Using DAST

There are many benefits to using DAST, including:

  • It will help you find more vulnerabilities in your application.
  • It’s a low-cost method to identify problems before attackers exploit them.
  • You will be able to fix these issues before attackers use them without disrupting normal business operations.

In addition, DAST is often used as part of a DevOps process for continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD). This means that it can provide feedback on the security of your applications when changes are pushed into production or even at build time. In other words, this type of testing can give developers an idea about whether their work has introduced any new vulnerabilities into the codebase before it goes out to customers – which ultimately saves them from having their product rejected due to security concerns down the road.

How Can You Get Started?

Now that you know what DAST is and how it works, let’s take a look at some steps for getting started with your testing:

How to use DAST

Step One: Identify Your Goals and Objectives Before launching any application security testing project, identify your goals and objectives. For example, if the purpose of this test were to find vulnerabilities so they can be fixed as soon as possible, then perhaps focusing on web applications would make sense since those tend to contain many potential entry points into an organization’s network. Other options include testing all applications or only those that are most critical.

Step Two: Identify Assets The next step is to identify assets and prioritize them based on risk exposure level (e.g., low, medium, high). This will help narrow down which specific systems should receive attention before others during testing activities to not spread resources too thinly across numerous targets at once but rather focus efforts where they can have a major impact!

Step Three: Execute Tests After identifying assets, execute tests against each of them in order from highest priority first through lowest priority last until all risks have been addressed with appropriate actions taken accordingly. Scan your application for vulnerabilities using a tool such as Astra’s Pentest, Burp Suite Pro, or OWASP ZAP Proxy; this process takes anywhere from 30 minutes up to several hours, depending on the size of your codebase, but it’s well worth the time investment because there will be fewer bugs later when developers try their best efforts at fixing them! 

Step Four: The next step is reporting. After your scan has been completed, you’ll want to generate a report that shows what vulnerabilities were found and where they reside within the codebase. When developing this report, it’s essential not only for finding bugs but also to communicate them effectively with stakeholders who may not have technical knowledge of software security practices or terminology.

How To Find Additional Hidden Vulnerabilities During DAST?

DAST can find gaps in your security defenses that other checks may have missed. For example, suppose you run a penetration test on your web application but only find flaws in the front-end code. In that case, there’s still potential for those same issues to exist elsewhere within an internal network or database layer – which could lead attackers straight into sensitive areas like customer information!

The Verdict

DAST is an excellent way to identify vulnerabilities that other security scans may have missed, and it can help you find hidden weaknesses in your applications. DAST should be run periodically as part of an overall strategy for application security testing so that any issues are caught early on before being exploited by attackers.

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