Vulnerability Detection Capabilities

The types of vulnerabilities each approach detects reflect their fundamental methodologies. SCA specializes in known vulnerabilities with existing CVEs or security advisories. It excels at identifying outdated components with published vulnerabilities, license compliance issues, and supply chain risks. SCA can detect when applications use vulnerable versions of Log4j, Struts, or other components with known issues. It also identifies maintenance risks from abandoned or infrequently updated dependencies.

SAST detects vulnerability patterns in custom code through sophisticated analysis techniques. It identifies injection flaws where user input reaches dangerous functions without sanitization, authentication bypasses in custom security implementations, and cryptographic weaknesses from improper algorithm usage. SAST can trace complex data flows across multiple functions and files, revealing subtle vulnerabilities that manual review might miss. It also enforces coding standards and identifies code quality issues that could lead to security problems.

DAST discovers vulnerabilities that only manifest during application execution. It excels at finding configuration issues like missing security headers, weak SSL/TLS configurations, and exposed administrative interfaces. DAST identifies authentication and session management flaws by attempting various bypass techniques. It can discover injection vulnerabilities by sending malicious payloads and observing application responses. DAST also finds business logic flaws that arise from component interactions rather than individual code issues.