Why Source Code Visibility is the Secret Weapon to DAST that Scales

As AI coding assistants accelerate development, the proliferation of applications and APIs creates challenges for Application Security (AppSec) teams, who struggle to discover and test these rapidly emerging assets, leading to concerns about unseen and untested attack surfaces. Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) often stalls at scale due to difficulties in identifying what needs testing and managing the configuration burden across numerous applications. This is compounded by the fact that many APIs and applications remain undiscovered until they are already in production, making traditional discovery methods insufficient. StackHawk addresses this visibility issue by integrating API discovery directly from source code, enabling real-time and proactive identification of APIs, microservices, and other components. This approach ensures that AppSec teams can focus on testing the most critical and relevant applications, minimizing wasted effort on irrelevant repositories and outdated configurations. By continuously generating OpenAPI specifications through code analysis and AI, StackHawk enhances DAST effectiveness, allowing organizations to maintain up-to-date coverage and demonstrate measurable improvements in security posture to leadership.