IT workloads are increasingly moving to the cloud, changing the way organizations develop and deliver software. Deploying and running production systems is now separate from the hardware and network, infrastructure is defined through code, and operations are now part of cloud service APIs.

Synopsys Rapid Scan helps developers build secure apps with faster, accurate application security testing. The word “rapid” has particular importance when it comes to what developers expect from application security solutions. Anything that slows down development efforts causes friction.

We’ve been asked to provide a comparison of scan times between Snyk Code and two common SAST tools: LGTM and SonarQube. For our research, we made several assumptions, but we’ve shared the details in order to be transparent.

Why fixing software issues as you code matters and how Rapid Scan SAST can help. It’s common knowledge that fixing bugs early in the software development life cycle (SDLC) is much faster and less costly than doing it later. However, did you know that developers prefer finding and fixing bugs as they code rather than getting a list of identified issues even just one day later?

Writing a good checker can take a lot of effort. CodeXM makes writing certain types of checkers much easier. Static application security testing (SAST) is best described as a method of debugging by automatically examining the source code before the application is deployed. It provides an understanding of the code structure, finds quality and security flaws present in the code, and helps ensure adherence to secure coding standards.

Machine learning is a loaded term. While machine learning offers amazing potential for advancing technologies, it often gets used as a marketing buzzword describing glorified pattern recognition. So it becomes increasingly difficult to know if the application of machine learning to existing technology is going to break new ground or sell more licenses. That’s the problem that Frank Fischer, Product Marketing for Snyk Code, explores in his RSAC 2021 talk ML in SAST: Disruption or Distraction.

There are a lot of challenges one might face when trying to identify the best SAST tool for your team. But how do you measure something that is meant to find unknowns? How do you know if the tool is appropriate for your needs? How do you compare different tools? It’s no wonder that we often get asked, “Does Snyk Code have coverage for the OWASP Top 10?” followed by “How do you suggest we evaluate and compare different SAST tools?”

With the rise of cyber attacks on web apps, organizations require AST tools that can help manage web application security and compliance. Remember the saga of Equifax and the unpatched Apache Struts vulnerability? It wasn’t that long ago, and it’s one of the most notorious web application security incidents to date.