Measuring SAST Effectiveness

Measuring SAST Effectiveness

Metrics for SAST programs must balance security outcomes with developer impact. Vulnerability detection rates show tool effectiveness but must be contextualized with false positive rates. Mean time to remediation indicates how quickly teams address findings. Vulnerability escape rates measure issues that SAST missed but were found through other means.

Developer productivity metrics ensure SAST doesn't become a bottleneck. Pipeline execution time, developer wait time for security feedback, and time spent addressing false positives all impact productivity. Successful SAST programs show improving security metrics without degrading development velocity.

Continuous improvement requires regular evaluation of SAST configurations and results. Quarterly reviews of suppressed findings ensure false positive markings remain valid. Analysis of escaped vulnerabilities helps identify SAST coverage gaps. Developer surveys provide qualitative feedback on tool usability and effectiveness. This feedback loop ensures SAST programs evolve with changing codebases and threat landscapes.

SAST forms a critical component of comprehensive pipeline security, providing early detection of code-level vulnerabilities. When properly integrated and tuned, SAST tools become valuable allies in the development process rather than compliance checkboxes. The next chapter explores dynamic testing approaches that complement SAST by identifying runtime vulnerabilities that static analysis cannot detect.## Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and Interactive Testing

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) examines running applications to identify vulnerabilities that only manifest during execution. Unlike SAST's code analysis, DAST simulates real attacks against deployed applications, discovering issues like authentication bypasses, session management flaws, and server misconfigurations. This chapter explores DAST implementation in CI/CD pipelines, the emergence of Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST), and strategies for comprehensive runtime security validation.