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Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) simulates real-world attacks against a running application to uncover security flaws that only appear in a live environment. Unlike Static Application Security Testing (SAST), DAST has no access to source code—it interacts with the application’s interfaces (e.g., HTTP endpoints) to discover vulnerabilities.

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What Is Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)?

DAST evaluates an application from the outside in, detecting issues that might be missed when scanning code alone.
DAST is best suited for QA or pre-production environments. Running DAST in production can reveal critical flaws—but must be done with caution to avoid service disruptions.
Key characteristics:
  • Executed against a live, deployed application
  • No access to source code or binaries
  • Ideal for catching misconfiguration and runtime issues
  • Focuses on externally visible vulnerabilities

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Common Vulnerabilities Detected by DAST

DAST tools target many OWASP Top 10 risks. The table below shows typical findings:

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Pros and Cons of DAST

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Advantages

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Limitations

The image is an informational graphic about DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing), highlighting its features, advantages, and limitations in identifying security vulnerabilities in applications. It contrasts DAST with SAST (Static Application Security Testing) and lists specific vulnerabilities DAST can detect, such as cross-site scripting and SQL injection.

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DAST vs. SAST

Comparing Static vs. Dynamic analysis:
Running DAST against production workloads can impact performance. Schedule scans during low-traffic windows and ensure proper monitoring.

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Next Steps

In the following lesson, we’ll use OWASP ZAP to perform a dynamic scan on an application deployed in a Kubernetes cluster. You’ll learn how to:
  1. Configure OWASP ZAP for automated scanning
  2. Interpret scan reports to prioritize fixes
  3. Integrate DAST into a CI/CD pipeline

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