Open Source Solutions for Vulnerability Assessment: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

As software applications continue to become more complex and attractive to cyber-attackers, enhancing resilience against cyber threats becomes essential. Aiming to provide more robust solutions, different approaches were proposed for vulnerability detection in different stages of the application life-cycle. This article explores three main approaches to application security: Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), and Software Composition Analysis (SCA). The analysis conducted in this work is focused on open-source solutions while considering commercial solutions to show contrast in the approaches taken and to better illustrate the different options available. It proposes a baseline comparison model to help evaluate and select the best solutions, using comparison criteria that are based on community standards. This work also identifies future opportunities for application security, highlighting some of the key challenges that still need to be addressed in order to fully protect against emerging threats, and proposes a workflow that combines the identified tools to be used for vulnerability assessments.

Keywords

• Application security
• static application security testing
• dynamic application security testing
• software composition analysis
• vulnerability assessment