Common Vulnerabilities Detected by SAST

Between 2022 and 2023, the number of cyberattacks involving the exploitation of vulnerabilities in web applications surged by 180%. This indicates that threat actors are increasingly exploiting vulnerabilities in applications to execute all kinds of attacks. Even a single such incident can have devastating consequences for a business, from business downtime and financial losses, to damaged reputations, loss of customer trust, and legal or regulatory penalties.

To guard against such consequences, organizations must implement strategies to find, fix, and prevent vulnerabilities in web applications throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC). One such highly effective strategy is static application security testing (SAST).

What is SAST?

SAST is a type of application security (AppSec) testing, in which an application’s source code is analyzed to identify vulnerabilities before the code is pushed to production. Since SAST tools test the code rather than a running application, development teams can repair discovered vulnerabilities early in the SDLC and thus deliver a more secure application to customers or end users.

SAST is a “white-box” testing approach since the SAST tool has access to the underlying code and related dependencies. Also, the tester has knowledge about the application’s design and implementation.

The Importance of SAST

Early and frequent testing with a SAST tool enables teams to discover vulnerabilities early in the SDLC. The tool provides actionable feedback that they can implement to remediate the discovered vulnerabilities before they can show up in production. This means less rework, fewer delays or cost overruns, timely deployment and delivery, and most importantly, a better-quality application that effectively meets users’ expectations.

The other option is to test the application only at the end of the SDLC when development is already complete and the application is ready for deployment. The problem with this approach is that issues are discovered when it’s already too late. When teams wait to test towards the end of the SDLC, they often find that remediating vulnerabilities requires major coding changes. This not only increases development cost, but also delays product release and time-to-market.

Common Weakness Enumerations (CWEs) are an integral part of understanding and mitigating these vulnerabilities. CWEs categorize the underlying weaknesses that can lead to security issues. For instance, many critical vulnerabilities stem from common weaknesses such as buffer overflows (CWE-120), SQL injection (CWE-89), and cross-site scripting (CWE-79).

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools are designed to identify these weaknesses (CWEs) in the source code or binaries during the development phase. By detecting and addressing CWEs early, developers can prevent the introduction of vulnerabilities. This proactive approach helps in reducing the number of critical vulnerabilities in deployed software, enhancing the overall security posture of applications.

One example of a critical weakness is SQL injection. This vulnerability, which ranks #3 on the OWASP Top 10 list of web application security risks, occurs when a threat actor inserts malicious data into an application to manipulate database queries in order to modify, corrupt, or steal sensitive or critical information, or to completely compromise the application.

A SAST tool enables development teams to identify SQL injection vulnerabilities. Through taint analysis, the tool tracks the flows of input data through the source code to discover if potentially malicious data may enter a function without the necessary validation to benefit a malicious user.

SAST can also uncover many other types of vulnerabilities and help organizations to strengthen their application defenses. These include:

SQLi: A code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications by inserting malicious SQL statements into a query. Learn more about SQL injection here.
Improper Input Validation: A security flaw where a system fails to properly check or sanitize user input, leading to potential vulnerabilities like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, or buffer overflows. Learn more about improper input validation here.
Cross-site scripting (XSS): A vulnerability that allows attackers to compromise a web application and gain control over its user data. Learn more about XSS here.
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF): It enables adversaries to trick users into performing certain actions that benefit the attacker, such as transferring funds to the attacker’s bank account. Learn more about CSRF here.
Path Traversal: A security vulnerability that allows attackers to access directories and files stored outside the intended directory by manipulating variables that reference files with "dot-dot-slash (../)" sequences. Learn more about path traversal here.
Buffer overflows: A buffer overflow vulnerability can result in unpredictable app behaviors, including outright crashes, and allow attackers to get the application to execute arbitrary code, thus causing its compromise. Learn more about buffer overflow here.

In addition to the above, Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools can also detect control flow and data flow issues. Data flow analysis helps in identifying how data propagates through the code which is critical for detecting issues like tainted data reaching sensitive areas. Control flow analysis helps in understanding the possible execution paths, ensuring that all potential vulnerabilities are identified. By understanding the data flow, developers can ensure that sensitive data is handled securely throughout the application, whereas control flow analysis helps ensure that the application behaves as expected under various conditions, avoiding unexpected behaviors that could be exploited.

Data flow focuses on the movement and transformation of data, while control flow focuses on the sequence of execution. SAST uses both analyses to identify and mitigate security vulnerabilities in the code, enhancing the overall security posture of the application. All these vulnerabilities can affect its performance, hinder user experiences, and increase the risk of application corruption and data losses.

How to Select the Right SAST Tool to Monitor and Discover Vulnerabilities

SAST tools automatically evaluate application source code without running the code and identify potential security vulnerabilities using predefined rules, patterns, and algorithms based on known vulnerabilities and secure coding best practices. These vulnerabilities often enter the code due to coding errors, poor design choices, or inadequate security practices. Once the analysis is complete, the tool generates a report detailing the vulnerabilities identified, the locations and severity levels of each, as well as actionable remediation recommendations.

That said, not all automated SAST tools are the same. Different tools have their own strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to do thorough research, assessments, and comparisons based on these considerations:

What kind of vulnerabilities the tool can and cannot find
Whether it provides visual representations of discovered issues and detailed remediation guidance
Which programming languages it supports
How well it can distinguish between real vulnerabilities and false positives
Whether it includes a user-friendly interface and simple navigations
Whether it can prioritize according to exploitability and internet reachability.
How quickly it performs scans and generates reports

The best tools accurately detect a wide variety of vulnerabilities, including those in the OWASP Top 10 and NIST NVD. They can also complete scans quickly to prevent development slowdowns, have a low false positive rate so less time is wasted on reviews and validations, and offer extensive language support. Finally, seamless integrations with CI/CD pipelines, IDEs, and version control systems is a huge plus because it can enable early and fast vulnerability remediation before the application is moved to production.

Backslash: The Most Accurate Code Analysis (SAST) for Efficient and Compliant AppSec Teams

Backslash provides fast, accurate SAST for all kinds of applications. Through Reachability Analysis, it uncovers real risks and attack paths that can be exploited by threat actors. More importantly, it provides clear and actionable indicators that enable organizations to minimize their risk of attack and amplify their security outcomes.

Backslash can easily replace legacy SAST tools with its targeted approach, highly accurate vulnerability detection, and 10X reduction in real vulnerabilities. It also provides valuable insights that enable dev and AppSec teams to identify hidden secrets in code, implement effective remediations, and maintain compliance with SBOM and VEX.

Conclusion

The vulnerability landscape is constantly expanding. Bad actors are always on the lookout to exploit these vulnerabilities for their own nefarious purposes, so development and AppSec teams need to proactively look for, detect, and remediate vulnerabilities. Here’s where advanced, accurate, and intelligent SAST tools like Backslash are valuable additions to any AppSec program.

Backslash is ideal for organizations looking to reduce application risks and strengthen application security with minimal hassle and at lowest cost.

Backslash identifies external reachability that attackers can exploit effectively. By prioritizing SAST vulnerabilities reachable from the internet, we eliminate noise and detect potential internet exposure.

The analysis of source-to-sink flows in the application code, combined with the application architecture context, allows Backslash to prioritize exploitable code vulnerabilities more effectively.

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