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Cybersecurity has become a strategic issue for any business. If information today is such a valuable asset for businesses, it is critical that the entire digital infrastructure is prepared to keep it safe.
In this sense, tests such as IAST,DAST and SAST have gained an even more important role in software development. But after all, how do they work and what is their relationship to the quality of source codes?
We created this special content precisely to clarify these and other questions on the subject. Check out!
The importance of managing application vulnerabilities
Vulnerability management aims to mitigate problems that could cause security breaches in the company's digital infrastructure. This means protecting sensitive data and ensuring that hardware and software continues to operate safely, securely, and availability.
In general, this is accomplished with the help of a management system that scans the network. The goal is to identify and classify any vulnerabilities for corrective actions to be performed. See that we're talking about a fundamental basis for IT or cybersecurity staff to act with planning.
In addition, it is worth noting that vulnerabilities can be of three types: human failures, programming errors and problems in the configuration of a system.
Therefore, management must have mechanisms to identify each of these problems, as well as specific practices to solve each of them.
Briefly, then, the management of vulnerabilities:
- detects faults;
- plans and executes solutions to these failures;
- studies new strategies and tools to combat failures;
- optimizes software configuration to reduce its vulnerability and increase its efficiency;
- implements solutions to protect against attacks, intrusions and data thefts;
- plans the constant improvement of digital infrastructure;
- performs the control of assets (physical and digital) with details of the degree of severity of the detected failures.
In this context, the network tests in this post are key pieces for this work to succeed.
IAST, DAST, RASP and SAST: the operation and importance of testing
As we mentioned earlier, the nature and origin of the loopholes need to be investigated in to make the response effective. Therefore, a fundamental first step is to have an information security policy. In addition to defining the vulnerability management strategy, it defines the rules to be followed by all employees.
With regard to software, in a more specific way, the security issue is directly related to the quality of the source code. Whether it's an internally developed solution, whether it's a contracted product, the path is the same: perform tests to identify flaws and solve them.
Let's see, then, what are the differences between each test and why it is so important to run them.
DAST
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), or Dynamic Application Security Test, is a testing solution that adopts the so-called black box method. Roughly speaking, the application is examined during its operation—so the dynamic aspect of the test. Its purpose is to identify any vulnerabilities that an attacker could try to take advantage of to gain access to your data, send commands, stop its operation, etc.
The advantages of this method are several, starting with the detection of loopholes that can only be seen with the code in operation. Authentication issues, vulnerabilities that only appear after login, and server settings, for example, tend to be identified by DAST.
SAST
Static Application Security Testing (SAST), or Static Application Security Test, adopts the white box method. As its name suggests, it works differently from DAST because it examines the vulnerability of the software by other means, without executing its code.
The application, in this case, is analyzed from the inside out: the source code is scanned by the SAST solution so that any security holes are identified. This allows the test to run even during software development, which is a big plus.
In addition, SAST helps ensure application compliance with project rules and guidelines, something more laborious to fix after it's ready. In addition, it provides a more detailed view of the code itself, which makes it easier for developers to work.
RASP
Runtime Application Self Protection (RASP), or Runtime Application Self-Protection, is an intelligent solution that detects and prevents real-time attacks. Running on a server, this solution takes action when an application runs.
The RASP is able to perform protection by analyzing any kind of malicious behavior by verifying the context of this behavior in real time. Thus, attacks are identified and mitigated without the need for human intervention.
IAST
Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST), or Interactive Application Security Testing, offers a combination of both methods. However, this combination can be done in two ways, because the application developer usually takes SAST or DAST as the basis and adds the functionality of the other test to that solution.
On the one hand, we have passive IAST, which is a kind of SAST with more functionality. Its advantage is to use some SAST concepts to do an extra scan, helping to identify false positives that a SAST alone could produce. Briefly, it also compiles and tests the code after scanning from the inside out.
Active IAST uses dast's black box approach, testing loopholes to hack into the application, but brings at least one advantage of SAST: more accurate results from the source of the failure. In some cases, such as in PHP source code apps, the tool may even identify the exact line of system failure.
BugScout: the perfect union of SAST and IAST
BugScout® is a solution that combines SAST and IAST to ensure more robust vulnerability management in software development. Through extensive and in-depth analysis of applications, the platform acts directly on the source code to identify possible gaps in up to 35 programming languages.
Static analysis comchanges code with international security standards and protocols. This gives your company the potential to map up to 94% of vulnerabilities. The dynamic test puts the application in a stress situation, rummaging through its structure in detail to identify and categorize failures.
The result is work that increases the efficiency of your applications, improves developer productivity, and ensures your company's compliance with the General Data Protection Act (LGPD). They are differentials that make BugScout a powerful ally of your organization.
Now that you know how to have more efficient vulnerability management with IAST, DAST, and SAST, put this technology to work in your favor. With the LGPD in place, it's critical to ensure more robust cybersecurity in your business!
If you want to understand how this can work in the specific context of your DEV team, contact BugScout and schedule a meeting with our experts!
