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IAST Solutions: Types, Benefits, and Use Cases

Vrinda Mathur
Nov 18, 2022

IAST (Interactive Application Security Testing) examines code for security flaws while the app is being run by an automated test, a human tester, or any activity that "interacts" with the application functionality. This technology reports vulnerabilities in real-time, so it adds no additional time to your CI/CD pipeline.

IAST operates within the application, distinguishing it from both static and dynamic analysis (DAST). This type of testing also does not test the entire application or codebase, but only what the functional test exercises.

IAST performs best when deployed in a QA environment alongside automated functional tests.

What is IAST?

IAST (Interactive Application Security Testing) is a security tool that combines the security functions of SAST (Static Application Security Testing) and DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing).

It is an application security tool designed for both web and mobile applications that detects and reports issues even while the application is running. Before you can fully comprehend the concept of Interactive Application Security Testing, you must first understand what SAST and DAST are.

IAST is still a newcomer in town and focuses on detecting security flaws in your applications' code. It acts as an agent in the application server. It detects application vulnerabilities in real-time by analyzing all traffic within the application as well as the application's execution flow. Simply browsing the applications will reveal all of the application's security flaws.

It is impossible to overestimate the value of application testing and IAST. According to the 2017 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, web application attacks were responsible for 29.5% of breaches. To circumvent network defenses, cyber attackers are resorting to application layer attacks. Once they have gained access, they can cause damage to sensitive data and disrupt critical services.

You are at high risk of becoming a victim of a cyber-criminal if you do not have any defenses in place to protect against application attacks. IAST testing models are critical for identifying and eliminating vulnerabilities that an attacker may be looking for.

IAST allows you to address known vulnerabilities before they are exploited by malicious actors. To put it another way, application testing enables you to identify an entry point and close the door before anyone else can.

The Interactive Application Security Test (IAST) is a new generation of vulnerability analysis technology that can effectively close technical gaps in the e-commerce platform's various sites. Using a novel design context association mechanism, this technology combines Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST). IAST combines the benefits of SAST and DAST technology, and it continuously detects and identifies application flaws.

Types of IAST:

Since this concept of IAST is newer than DAST and SAST and was originally designed to cover a variety of approaches by different vendors, the term may apply to cybersecurity tools that do very different things. In general, there are three types of IAST tools on the market.

Types of IAST

IAST is passive.

Most tools only include a sensor that connects to the running application. If this sensor detects anything suspicious while the application is running, it will notify the IAST solution's dashboard. Such tools are typically triggered by QA testing (unit tests) and cover only the code covered by QA testing.

IAST is currently active.

DAST makers provide a large number of IAST tools on the market, but as separate (non-integrated) products, which are referred to as DAST-induced IAST (a term used originally by Gartner). These activate IAST sensors using DAST but do not combine data from the two sources. They function exactly as if you combined a passive IAST solution with a completely separate DAST.

True IAST.

True IAST refers to a small number of tools on the market that go beyond active IAST. This is because there is actual interaction between the inducing element (a DAST scanner) and the IAST sensor in these tools. They communicate with one another and influence one another to provide better test results, achieve a very low false-positive rate, and fully confirm security vulnerabilities. All DAST and IAST results are also compiled into a centralized reporting interface. True IAST tools include Invicti and Acunetix by Invicti.

Benefits of IAST:

Benefits offered by IAST are:-

IAST moves testing to the left side of the SDLC.

IAST is typically performed during the test/QA stage of the software development life cycle (SDLC). IAST effectively shifts testing to the left, catching problems earlier in the development cycle and reducing remediation costs and delays. Many tools can be integrated into tools for continuous integration (CI) and continuous development (CD). The most recent generation of tools returns results as soon as the changed code is recompiled and the running app is retested, assisting developers in identifying vulnerabilities earlier in the development process.

IAST provides precise results for quick triage.

Organizations require accurate, automated security testing tools that scale to process hundreds of thousands of HTTP requests while returning results with low false-positive rates to keep up with the demand for rapid development of web applications. DAST tools frequently generate many false positives but do not specify lines of code for identified vulnerabilities, making triaging results and easily eliminating false positives difficult. IAST and SAST can both provide detailed information (including code lines) to assist development and security teams in triaging test results.

The IAST identifies the source of vulnerabilities.

IAST analyzes applications from within and has access to application code, runtime control and dataflow information, memory and stack trace information, HTTP requests and responses, libraries, frameworks, and other components (via an SCA tool). This analysis enables developers to quickly identify the source of a discovered vulnerability and fix it.

IAST is simple to integrate into CI/CD.

AppSec tools that integrate seamlessly with standard build, test, and QA tools without extensive configuration or tuning are required by web application development and DevOps teams to reduce false positives. To support large enterprise requirements, these tools should be simple to deploy, update, and scale. IAST is the only dynamic testing technique that seamlessly integrates into CI/CD pipelines.

IAST enables faster and less expensive fixes.

AppSec tools that detect vulnerabilities and allow developers to fix them early in the SDLC when developers are most familiar with their code and errors and vulnerabilities are least expensive to fix in terms of resources and security risk posture, are required by security and development teams. Typically, SAST and SCA tools are used during the development stage, whereas IAST is used during the test/QA stage. The results are fed back to developers, who fix any vulnerabilities discovered during the development stage.

Feedback on Demand.

IAST solutions, unlike static and dynamic testing tools, provide on-demand feedback. In a matter of seconds, you can run a scan and receive actionable feedback. DAST and SAST scans are typically performed on a regular basis, which means that there is a significant amount of time between when applications are tested.

Continuous scanning provides real-time feedback that a developer can use to improve the application right away. That means less time and money spent waiting for code to be scanned, as well as less time exposed to vulnerabilities.

Use cases of IAST:

IAST is a security tool that can be used at any stage of the SDLC. During the software development life cycle, we will look at three use cases.

Participation of IAST in the development stage

The development team benefits greatly from IAST because it aids in the detection of vulnerabilities in an application, which is usually done near the end of the SDLC rather than after the application has been deployed to production.

This lowers the costs of addressing the vulnerabilities. Please keep in mind that it can be used in both pre-production and production environments. It's a security tool that completely supports CI-CD in a DevOps environment.

Participation of IAST in the QA stage

It is not necessary to wait for a scan to finish before reporting vulnerabilities in an application. It is a tool that can be integrated into the quality assurance and CI-CD environments, can be used for pre-deployment testing and is DevOps friendly.

Also Read: Best 7 DevOps Tools

IAST refers to the stages of production.

It also provides all necessary support to the operations team during the production stages. This is due to the fact that not all vulnerabilities would be addressed prior to production deployment.

So, with this tool, you are assured of application security even while in the production environment, and it provides information on patches to prioritize to fix very serious issues, as well as monitoring the overall system's stability.

Also Read: What is Agile Software Development? Agile SDLC

Conclusion:

IAST detects security flaws in running applications and provides developers with relevant lines of code as well as contextual remediation advice. As a result, they can find and fix security vulnerabilities before web apps go live, lowering the risk of security breaches.

The term interactive application security testing (IAST) refers to security testing in which the testing tool interacts with and observes a running application from the inside in real-time. It should be noted that the term IAST can refer to both the security testing methodology and the tools that use it.

Web application frameworks and APIs are tested using interactive application security testing solutions. There are very few IAST solutions for mobile and desktop applications. IAST is also known as gray-box testing.

Interactive application security testing tools operate by running checks on an application's codebase as it is executed by the web server or application server. This AppSec technology bridges the gap between static application security testing, which examines static (not running) code, and dynamic application security testing, which examines the application only from the outside.

IAST can be used as part of automation workflows (CI/CD pipelines), but it is also useful during manual or scheduled application testing processes. One of the most significant advantages of IAST is that, like static code analysis, it can pinpoint the problem to the line of code. When using bytecode, the IAST tool can usually reverse-engineer the intermediate code and isolate the problem in the corresponding source code.

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IAST Solutions: Types, Benefits, and Use Cases

What is IAST?

Types of IAST:

IAST is passive.

IAST is currently active.

True IAST.

Benefits of IAST:

IAST moves testing to the left side of the SDLC.

IAST provides precise results for quick triage.

The IAST identifies the source of vulnerabilities.

IAST is simple to integrate into CI/CD.

IAST enables faster and less expensive fixes.

Feedback on Demand.

Use cases of IAST:

Participation of IAST in the development stage

Participation of IAST in the QA stage

IAST refers to the stages of production.

Conclusion:

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