What to look for in a DAST solution

In the market for a DAST product for your web applications? You are definitely spoiled for choice, but you need a structured approach to move past vendor messaging into close evaluation. To help you navigate through the marketing hype and pick the product that’s right for your organization, our experts have prepared an in-depth buying guide. Here’s what to consider before diving in.

Take a step back to see the big picture

Modern dynamic application security testing (DAST) solutions are an essential part of any web security toolbox. Done right, dynamic testing can go beyond its core purpose of finding dynamic vulnerabilities to also give you a high-level view of your security posture. By looking at your entire application environment from the outside in, you can get a very good idea of the attack surface available to malicious actors. This combination of application-level vulnerability detection with a broader security picture can be invaluable – but only if you can get accurate and reliable results.

Look for measurable security improvements

As any security practitioner will tell you, the road from getting an application testing tool to getting value from it can be long and costly. Before you can see security improvements, you need to deploy and integrate your chosen product in your unique application environment. If you are also building it into your software development pipeline (which you definitely should be doing), the time to your first security bug fix can be that much longer. This time to value can be greatly reduced by using solutions that are quick to deploy and provide out-of-the-box integration with existing collaboration platforms and development workflows. Once in place, the solution should help you both resolve immediate issues and improve application security in the long run.

Think what real-life effectiveness means to you

Cybersecurity marketing thrives on impressive numbers and bold claims, but real-life security is not about ticking boxes. When weighing your DAST options, start by asking yourself what security testing effectiveness means in your specific workflows and environments. The right solution will help your teams get from scan result to working fix with a minimum of manual work, communication overhead, and information noise. With alert overload now acknowledged as a serious issue in cybersecurity and a major cause of professional burnout, it is vital to select products that will help your security engineers and developers work faster and more efficiently instead of flooding them with uncertain reports.

Ask the right questions

Choosing a DAST solution that fits your needs is vital for building an effective web application security program and minimizing the risk of successful attacks. Without careful consideration, you could be spending money on a product that brings no real value to your organization, leaving you with a false sense of security. That’s why it’s so important to ask the right questions and demand clear answers.

Get the guide to learn the 17 things every buyer needs to evaluate when looking for a DAST solution:

Web Application Security Buyer’s Guide by Invicti