Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) Is Broken, Not Dead. Dynamic Testing Must Evolve
DevOps.com, Friday, March 21st, 2025
For years, DAST was the go-to approach for identifying vulnerabilities in web applications. But let's be honest, DAST has built up quite a bad reputation. If you have ever worked with traditional DAST solutions, you would know the pain:
Slow and Disruptive: Scanning with DAST often feels like waiting for paint to dry -except, at the end of it, your engineers are bombarded with false positives which ultimately waste their time.
Quality Issues: It is not just the slowness; it is the lack of depth. Traditional DAST tools are notorious for missing modern threats while flagging non-issues that don't put applications at risk.
Hated by Developers: The intrusive and unpredictable nature of DAST scans means engineers either schedule them reluctantly or, worse, don't run them at all. In general, DAST tools are not integrated into developers' processes, tools or pipelines.
The result? Security teams aren't getting the feedback they need, and developers are too annoyed to engage in the process, leaving the entire attack surface exposed. That's not a recipe for effective security.