Coverage and Blind Spots

Coverage and Blind Spots

Each testing approach has unique coverage strengths and inherent blind spots that must be understood for effective security programs. SCA provides complete visibility into third-party component risks but cannot analyze custom code vulnerabilities. It excels at identifying known vulnerabilities with CVE identifiers but might miss zero-day vulnerabilities or malicious code without known signatures. SCA's dependency tree analysis reveals transitive dependency risks that other approaches cannot detect.

SAST offers comprehensive coverage of custom code paths, including error handlers and rarely executed functions. It can identify potential vulnerabilities before code is ever run, making it valuable for shift-left security. However, SAST generates significant false positives because it cannot understand runtime context or framework protections. It also cannot effectively analyze minified, obfuscated, or compiled third-party code, creating a massive blind spot for dependency vulnerabilities.

DAST provides runtime validation of security controls and can identify vulnerabilities regardless of their source—custom code or dependencies. It confirms exploitability rather than just identifying potential issues. However, DAST can only test code paths it can reach through external interfaces, potentially missing large portions of application functionality. It also cannot differentiate between vulnerabilities in custom code versus dependencies, complicating root cause analysis and remediation.