CyberGlossary

Application Security

DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing)

Also known as: Dynamic analysis, Black-box security testing

Definition

Black-box security testing that probes a running application over the network to find vulnerabilities visible only at runtime, such as injection, auth flaws and misconfigurations.

DAST tools interact with a deployed application — usually via HTTP — without needing source code. They crawl endpoints, send crafted requests, and observe responses to detect issues such as SQL injection, XSS, SSRF, broken authentication, misconfigured CORS or insecure cookies. Because they see what an attacker would see, DAST complements SAST by catching runtime-only problems, including those arising from configuration, infrastructure or third-party services. DAST is typically run in staging or QA environments and integrated into CI/CD as a release gate. Common tools include OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite, Invicti, Acunetix and StackHawk.

Examples

  • Running an OWASP ZAP automated scan against a staging API as a CI job.
  • Performing a Burp Suite scan with an authenticated session against a SPA.

Related terms