6 Types of Application Security Testing in Depth [2025 Guide]

• The Importance of AST in the Software Development Lifecycle
• Application Security Testing Methodologies and Solutions
• Application Security Testing Approaches

• Application Security Testing Best Practices
• Radware in the Realm of Application Security Testing

Early Detection: AST starts early in the development process, allowing vulnerabilities to be identified and resolved before they make their way into production. This reduces the cost and effort required to fix issues later in the development cycle.

Comprehensive Coverage: AST tools can scan large and complex codebases comprehensively, which is often impractical for manual testing. This ensures that no stone is left unturned in the quest for vulnerabilities.

Shift-Left Approach: The shift-left approach integrates security into the development process from the outset, ensuring that security is not an afterthought. Developers are made aware of security best practices and can address issues in real-time.

Risk Reduction: By identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities during development, AST reduces the likelihood of security breaches and the associated damage to an organization's reputation and finances.

Continuous Improvement: With the integration of AST into Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, security testing becomes an ongoing and iterative process. This fosters a culture of continuous improvement and security awareness.

Regulatory Compliance: Many industries have strict regulatory requirements regarding data security. AST helps organizations meet these compliance standards, avoiding legal consequences and penalties.

Competitive Advantage: Demonstrating a commitment to security through AST can be a competitive advantage. It builds trust with customers, partners, and stakeholders, potentially leading to increased business opportunities.

Code Scanning: SAST tools scan the entire codebase, including dependencies, to identify vulnerabilities and coding issues.

Pattern Recognition: They use predefined patterns and rules to recognize potential security weaknesses, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and improper access control.

Code Flow Analysis: SAST tools analyze the flow of data and control within the code to understand how data is handled and identify potential security risks.

Early Bug Detection: Identifying security vulnerabilities in the development phase, allowing developers to fix issues before they become critical.

Secure Code Reviews: Conducting secure code reviews to ensure that code is developed with security in mind.

Compliance: Ensuring compliance with security coding standards and industry regulations.

Early Detection: Finds vulnerabilities in the development phase, reducing the cost and effort of fixing issues later in the lifecycle.

Comprehensive: Scans the entire codebase, including third-party libraries and frameworks, providing comprehensive coverage.

Static Analysis: Analyzes code statically, which means it can catch vulnerabilities without executing the application.

Integration: Easily integrates into the development process, including CI/CD pipelines, for continuous security assessment.

Consistency: Provides consistent results, reducing the subjectivity associated with manual code reviews.

False Positives/ Negatives: SAST tools may generate false positives (reporting non-existent issues) or miss certain vulnerabilities (false negatives).

Limited Runtime Context: Lacks the runtime context, making it challenging to identify issues like configuration errors or business logic flaws.

Complex Setup: Setting up SAST tools and configuring them correctly can be complex, requiring expertise.

Limited Language Support: Some SAST tools may have limited support for certain programming languages or frameworks.

In summary, Static Application Security Testing (SAST) is a white-box testing methodology that analyzes source code for security vulnerabilities and design flaws. It excels at early bug detection, ensures comprehensive coverage, and integrates well into the development process. However, it may produce false positives, lacks runtime context, and can be complex to set up.

Realistic Testing: DAST mimics real-world attacks, making it effective at finding vulnerabilities that may be missed in static analysis.

Runtime Context: It identifies vulnerabilities that can only be observed during application runtime, such as those related to configuration or business logic.

External Threat Simulation: DAST assesses how an application responds to external threats, helping organizations understand their security from an attacker's viewpoint.

Crawling: DAST tools crawl through the application to discover all available web pages, forms, and functionality.

Fuzz Testing: They input various data types and payloads into input fields to identify vulnerabilities like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and buffer overflows.

Session Handling: DAST tools can manage user sessions to simulate various user interactions and authentication scenarios.

Scripting: DAST can use scripts to automate testing processes and simulate complex attack scenarios.

Memory Leak Detection: While not a primary focus, some DAST tools may detect memory-related issues by monitoring application behavior.

Web Application Security: Assessing the security of web applications, including websites and web services.

Penetration Testing: Conducting simulated attacks to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses in an application's security.

Security Audits: Periodic audits to ensure that an application remains secure against evolving threats.

Injection Attacks: Detects vulnerabilities like SQL injection and command injection.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): Identifies XSS vulnerabilities that could be used for client-side attacks.

Authentication and Authorization: Assesses access control and privilege escalation issues.

Session Management: Tests for session fixation, hijacking, and other session-related vulnerabilities.

Input Validation: Checks how the application handles user inputs and potential data manipulation.

Configuration Errors: Identifies misconfigurations that can lead to security weaknesses.

Realistic Testing: It simulates real-world attacks, providing insights into how an application responds to external threats.

No Source Code Required: DAST doesn't require access to the application's source code, making it suitable for third-party assessments.

Comprehensive Coverage: It tests the entire application, including both code and configurations.

Dynamic Analysis: DAST identifies runtime vulnerabilities and behavior, complementing static analysis.

False Positives/Negatives: Like all testing methods, DAST can produce false positives and miss certain vulnerabilities.

Resource Intensive: DAST scans can be resource-intensive, potentially impacting application performance during testing.

Limited Testing Scope: DAST primarily focuses on web applications and may not cover other parts of an IT environment.

Limited Code Insight: It doesn't provide insights into code-level vulnerabilities or design flaws.

Runtime Analysis: It monitors the application during execution to identify vulnerabilities and assess how the application behaves in real-time.

Code Analysis: IAST examines the application's source code or bytecode, allowing it to understand the code's structure and logic.

Data Flow Analysis: It analyzes the flow of data within the application, helping to identify vulnerabilities related to data handling.

Web Application Security: Assessing the security of web applications and APIs by monitoring their behavior and code.

DevOps Integration: IAST can be integrated into CI/CD pipelines, providing continuous security assessment during development and deployment.

Penetration Testing: Identifying vulnerabilities and weaknesses in applications through simulated attacks.

Real-Time Detection: It identifies vulnerabilities as they occur during runtime, enabling immediate remediation.

Fewer False Positives: IAST typically generates fewer false positives compared to traditional DAST or SAST tools.

DevOps Integration: IAST can seamlessly integrate into DevOps processes, enabling continuous security testing.

Comprehensive Analysis: IAST provides a comprehensive view of an application's security by combining runtime analysis with code inspection.

Complex Setup: Setting up IAST tools can be more complex than traditional SAST or DAST tools, requiring expert configuration.

Resource Intensive: IAST scans can be resource-intensive and may impact application performance during testing.

Limited Language Support: Some IAST tools may have limited support for certain programming languages or frameworks.

Cost: IAST tools often come with a higher price tag compared to traditional AST solutions.

Static Analysis: Examines the source code or binary of a mobile app to identify potential security vulnerabilities, such as improper data storage, insecure coding practices, and hardcoded credentials.

Dynamic Analysis: Analyzes the app's behavior during runtime to identify vulnerabilities related to network communication, data leakage, and improper access controls.

Behavioral Testing: Tests how the app interacts with the device's hardware and software, looking for issues like unauthorized access to device resources, excessive permissions, or insecure data handling.

Mobile App Security Assessment: Assessing the security of mobile applications before they are released to the public.

Penetration Testing: Conducting simulated attacks to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses in mobile apps.

App Store Compliance: Ensuring that mobile apps comply with app store security requirements.

Data Privacy: Mobile apps often handle sensitive user data, such as location information, contacts, and personal messages, making data privacy a significant concern.

Insecure Communication: Mobile apps frequently communicate with remote servers, making them susceptible to network attacks if encryption and secure communication practices are not implemented.

Authentication and Authorization: Ensuring secure user authentication and proper authorization is essential to prevent unauthorized access to app features and data.

Mobile Device Security: Mobile apps can interact with device components like cameras, microphones, and GPS. If not properly secured, these interactions can lead to privacy breaches.

App Permissions: Mobile apps request various permissions from users. Granting excessive permissions can expose users to unnecessary risks.

Mobile-Specific Focus: MAST is tailored to address mobile-specific security concerns, ensuring comprehensive testing for mobile apps.

Comprehensive Analysis: It combines static and dynamic analysis, providing a holistic view of mobile app security.

Early Detection: MAST can detect vulnerabilities early in the development process, reducing the cost of fixing issues later.

App Store Compliance: Helps ensure that mobile apps meet the security requirements of app stores.

Complexity: MAST can be complex to set up and configure, requiring expertise in mobile app security.

Resource Intensive: Mobile app testing can be resource-intensive and may impact the app's performance during testing.

Rapid Development: Mobile app development is often rapid, which may pose challenges for keeping security assessments up to date.

Component Identification: SCA tools scan the software codebase to identify all third-party components, including libraries, frameworks, and modules. This process creates a comprehensive inventory of the software's dependencies.

License Compliance: SCA also checks the licenses of the third-party components to ensure that the software complies with open-source license agreements. It helps organizations avoid legal issues related to license violations.

Integration with Development Pipelines: Many organizations integrate SCA into their continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines to ensure that security and compliance checks are performed automatically at every stage of software development.

Vulnerability Detection: SCA tools check the components against known security vulnerabilities and provide information about the severity of these vulnerabilities. This allows organizations to prioritize and address the most critical issues.

Automated Scanning: SCA tools automate the scanning and analysis process, making it efficient and scalable, especially in large software projects with numerous dependencies.

Risk Assessment: SCA provides a holistic view of the security and compliance risks associated with using third-party components. It helps organizations make informed decisions about whether to use, update, or replace specific components.

Security Flaws: Third-party components may contain known or unknown security vulnerabilities. If these vulnerabilities are not patched or updated, they can be exploited by attackers.

Lack of Visibility: Developers may not have full visibility into the security of third-party components, making it challenging to assess and manage risks.

Outdated Versions: Developers often use older versions of components for compatibility reasons. These versions may lack security fixes found in newer releases.

License Compliance: Third-party components often come with licenses that must be respected. Failure to do so can lead to legal issues.

Risk Assessment: An inventory allows organizations to assess the security risks associated with each component in their software.

Vulnerability Management: It helps in tracking vulnerabilities and their impact on the software, enabling organizations to prioritize and remediate them.

Patch Management: With an inventory, organizations can quickly identify and apply patches or updates to vulnerable components.

License Compliance: A component inventory helps in ensuring that software complies with the licenses of the components it uses, avoiding legal issues.

Vulnerability Detection: SCA tools excel at identifying vulnerabilities in third-party components, helping organizations proactively address security risks.

License Compliance: They assist in tracking and ensuring compliance with open-source licenses, avoiding legal complications.

Automated Scans: SCA tools can automate the scanning process, saving time and effort compared to manual checks.

Visibility: SCA provides visibility into the components used in software, enhancing risk assessment and management.

False Positives: SCA tools may generate false positives, flagging components as vulnerable when they are not.

Limited to Known Vulnerabilities: SCA tools primarily detect known vulnerabilities, so zero-day vulnerabilities may go undetected.

Complexity: Managing a large number of components in complex software can be challenging.

Dependency Chain: SCA tools may not always trace the full dependency chain, potentially missing vulnerabilities in indirect dependencies.

Web Application Security: RASP can protect web applications from common attacks like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and cross-site request forgery (CSRF) by detecting and blocking malicious requests.

API Security: It safeguards APIs by monitoring incoming requests and responses, ensuring that unauthorized access or data leaks are prevented.

Protection Against Zero-Days: RASP can detect and mitigate previously unknown vulnerabilities and zero-day attacks by identifying abnormal behavior and blocking malicious actions.

Real-Time Threat Response: RASP provides immediate threat response by actively monitoring and protecting applications during runtime, reducing the window of exposure to attacks.

Real-Time Protection: RASP actively defends against attacks in real-time, minimizing the risk of successful breaches.

Application Awareness: It has deep knowledge of application behavior, allowing it to distinguish between legitimate and malicious actions.

Low False Positives: RASP typically generates fewer false positives compared to other security technologies.

Continuous Protection: It offers continuous protection, even in rapidly changing application environments.

Complex Implementation: Implementing RASP can be complex, requiring integration with the application and thorough configuration.

Resource Overhead: RASP can introduce some performance overhead to the application due to its monitoring and protection activities.

Limited to In-App Protection: RASP primarily protects the application it's integrated with and may not cover network or infrastructure-level attacks.

Effectiveness May Vary: The effectiveness of RASP can depend on the quality of its configuration and the ability to detect and respond to new and evolving threats.

Use Cases for Black-Box Testing:

• Penetration Testing: Simulating external attacks to assess how well an application withstands unauthorized access attempts.
• Compliance Audits: Ensuring applications meet security requirements outlined by industry standards.
• Real-World Attack Simulation: Evaluating how an application responds to threats from external actors.

Pros:

• Realistic Attack Simulation: Tests how the application appears to and defends against attackers without prior knowledge of its internals.
• No Source Code Dependency: Useful for testing proprietary software or third-party applications where access to code is unavailable.
• Comprehensive Scope: Covers vulnerabilities that arise from misconfigurations, network interactions, and runtime behaviors.

Cons:

• Limited Insight: Cannot identify vulnerabilities within the application's internal code or architecture.
• High False Positives: May flag issues that aren't actual vulnerabilities.
• Time-Consuming: Scans can take longer due to the need to discover all possible attack vectors.

Use Cases for White-Box Testing:

• Secure Development: Conducting code reviews during the development phase to prevent vulnerabilities from being introduced.
• Regulatory Compliance: Demonstrating adherence to security best practices and standards through thorough testing.
• Complex Systems Testing: Evaluating the security of applications with intricate architectures and dependencies.

Pros:

• Comprehensive Insight: Provides the most detailed analysis of the application’s security.
• Early Bug Detection: Identifies vulnerabilities during development, reducing remediation costs.
• Customizable: Testing can be tailored to specific security goals or compliance requirements.

Cons:

• Resource Intensive: Requires significant time, expertise, and computational resources for thorough analysis.
• Dependency on Expertise: Effective white-box testing depends on the skills of the testers in analyzing complex systems.
• Access Management: Providing and managing access to sensitive source code and internal documentation poses security risks.

Use Cases for Gray-Box Testing:

• Risk-Based Testing: Prioritizing high-risk areas of an application based on the provided insights.
• API Security Testing: Examining exposed APIs for security weaknesses using partial knowledge of their design.
• Compliance Validation: Ensuring regulatory requirements are met by testing internal and external components.

Pros:

• Balanced Perspective: Offers deeper insights than black-box testing while maintaining an attacker’s mindset.
• Efficient Testing: Targets specific areas of concern, making it less time-consuming than exhaustive black-box testing.
• Improved Coverage: Identifies issues that may not be visible to black-box testers, such as misconfigured internal controls.

Cons:

• Partial Knowledge: The extent of testing depends on the accuracy and completeness of the information provided.
• Potential Bias: Testers may focus on known areas of weakness and overlook unknown vulnerabilities.
• Setup Complexity: Requires coordination between development and security teams to share necessary details securely.

Shifting security to the early stages of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) ensures vulnerabilities are addressed during development, where they are less costly to fix. Implement security tools like Static Application Security Testing (SAST) to identify issues in the codebase during development. Use code checkers , code quality tools, and secure coding guidelines to catch vulnerabilities like injection flaws, insecure deserialization, and weak cryptography.

Introduce security-focused design and threat modeling sessions early in the planning phase to identify potential attack vectors. Collaborate with security teams to create a checklist of security requirements for each project phase.

Frequent security assessments ensure that newly introduced code, third-party integrations, or configuration changes do not introduce vulnerabilities. Combine automated tools like Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) with manual penetration testing to identify complex vulnerabilities such as business logic flaws and privilege escalation paths.

Schedule these assessments periodically (e.g., after major updates or quarterly) and on-demand when significant changes occur. Leverage security baselines and compliance benchmarks (e.g., OWASP Top 10, PCI-DSS, or NIST guidelines) during these assessments to ensure adherence to industry standards.

Third-party libraries and open-source dependencies often introduce vulnerabilities. Employ SCA tools to inventory and monitor all third-party components used in your applications. These tools scan for known vulnerabilities by cross-referencing components against databases like the National Vulnerability Database (NVD).

Establish a policy to use only well-maintained and regularly updated libraries. Regularly patch outdated components to address vulnerabilities and avoid using unsupported versions. Perform due diligence when selecting third-party components by reviewing their security history and licensing terms to prevent legal or compliance risks.

By embedding security into code, organizations can enforce secure configurations automatically. Define security policies in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, or Azure Resource Manager templates. For example, specify encryption for storage resources, enforce secure network configurations, and restrict unnecessary public exposure of services.

Integrate security checks into Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. Use tools like OWASP ZAP or Burp Suite to automate security scans during build and deployment stages. Define automated triggers to block builds if critical vulnerabilities are detected. This approach ensures that security is embedded consistently and at scale.

Equip developers with the knowledge to write secure code by conducting regular training sessions tailored to their expertise level. Cover common vulnerabilities, such as those listed in the OWASP Top 10, and how to mitigate them. Use practical, real-world examples to demonstrate the impact of vulnerabilities and how they can be exploited.

Provide developers with secure coding tools, such as cheat sheets, guidelines, and plugins for their Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) that highlight potential security issues in real time. Incorporate gamified training platforms like Secure Code Warrior or Hack The Box to make learning interactive and engaging. Regularly update training materials to include the latest threat trends and industry best practices.

Comprehensive AST Suite:

Radware provides a comprehensive suite of AST solutions that cover various aspects of application security, including web application firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, and bot mitigation. This breadth of offerings allows organizations to address multiple security challenges in one place.

Real-Time Threat Detection and Prevention:

Radware's AST solutions offer real-time threat detection and prevention capabilities. This means that not only do they identify vulnerabilities, but they also actively protect applications from attacks, ensuring ongoing security.

Behavioral Analysis:

Radware incorporates behavioral analysis into its AST solutions, allowing for the detection of anomalous behavior and zero-day attacks. This proactive approach enhances security by identifying threats that may not be covered by traditional signature-based detection.

Integration with WAF and DDoS Protection:

Radware's AST solutions seamlessly integrate with its WAF and DDoS protection technologies. This integration enables a holistic security strategy that covers not only vulnerabilities but also the protection of applications against various cyber threats.

Automation and Machine Learning:

Radware leverages automation and machine learning to enhance its AST capabilities. Machine learning algorithms can help identify evolving threats and reduce false positives, improving the accuracy of security measures.

DevSecOps Integration:

Radware supports the DevSecOps approach by integrating security testing into the development pipeline. This ensures that security is considered from the early stages of application development and helps organizations shift security left.

Compliance and Reporting:

Radware's AST solutions provide features for compliance management and reporting. This is crucial for organizations that need to adhere to industry standards and regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS.

Cloud and On-Premises Deployment Options:

Radware offers flexibility in deployment, allowing organizations to choose between cloud-based or on-premises solutions based on their specific requirements and infrastructure.

Scalability:

Radware's solutions are scalable and suitable for organizations of various sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises.