In this episode of the “Why All AppSec Products Suck” series, I focus on **Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)**—an approach I’ve spent 20+ years developing and refining. DAST tools simulate real-world attacks against running applications, making them powerful, but they also come with serious trade-offs.

I break down both the *strengths* and *limitations* of DAST and show you how to think about it as **one tool in a larger toolkit**, not a silver bullet.

🔍 *What you'll learn in this episode:*
What DAST is and how it works differently from SAST or IAST
Why DAST struggles with business logic flaws, JavaScript-heavy apps, and discovery
Where DAST shines: working without source code, scanning any language, and catching runtime bugs
How to balance false positives and ensure testing relevance
How to combine DAST with other tools for maximum security coverage

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⏱️ *Chapters:*
1. 00:00 – Intro: Why DAST is important (but imperfect)
2. 01:05 – My background: 20 years building DAST tools
3. 02:30 – Why one tool isn’t enough for AppSec
4. 04:10 – How DAST works: simulating users and probing sites
5. 06:10 – DAST’s challenge: discovering custom vulnerabilities
6. 07:30 – The evolution of app technologies (Ajax, JSON, SPAs)
7. 09:30 – Why DAST can’t detect business logic flaws
8. 11:00 – Handling crawling failures and limited visibility
9. 12:30 – The upside: DAST works without source code
10. 14:00 – False positives, automation, and operational integration
11. 15:30 – Final thoughts + why DAST still rocks with the right combo

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📚 **This episode is part of a comprehensive series**, where we cover each category of App Sec products:
SAST: Static Application Security Testing
DAST: Dynamic Application Security Testing
IAST: Interactive Application Security Testing
SCA: Software Composition Analysis
WAF: Web Application Firewall
RASP: Runtime Application Self-Protection (Next-Gen WAF)
Manual Pen-Testing of Applications
(SAST vs DAST vs IAST vs SCA vs WAF vs RASP vs Pen-Testing)

🎞️ **Watch the full playlist**:
[AppSec Product Comparison Series](   • Why All AppSec Products Suck  )

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🌐 *More Content & Resources*
Website: danondev.com/
Twitter: @Dan_On_Dev
Instagram: @dan_on_dev
Facebook: @dano