How to Add Application Security Tests to Your CI/CD Pipeline

Application security risks are increasingly significant, as applications are the primary attack vector in security breaches. To mitigate these risks, organizations are adopting DevSecOps practices by integrating automated application security testing into their CI/CD pipelines, which involves using tools like static analysis (SAST), dynamic analysis (DAST), and software composition analysis (SCA). This approach helps improve the fix rates for security vulnerabilities, although developers often face challenges due to a knowledge gap and cultural barriers with security teams. To ease the integration process, the guide suggests starting with a single application and implementing steps like secrets detection to safeguard sensitive information, followed by SCA to identify vulnerabilities in open-source dependencies, and DAST to test running services for potential exploits. The guide highlights the advantages and limitations of each tool, emphasizing the importance of automating AppSec testing to ensure more secure code and efficient development. Modern AppSec technologies can be quickly integrated into CI/CD pipelines, enabling developers to detect and resolve vulnerabilities before code goes live, thus optimizing both security and development workflows.