One of the greatest challenges of the security and development teams is to maintain a balance between speed and security. AST tools that leverage automation to produce high-quality results must continue to evolve. The goal should be to shift to a true DevSecOps model, by automating vulnerability detection. But, legacy AST solutions currently available tend to operate outside the CI tooling in use, and scans are generally performed after a build has already taken place.

Newer AST tools allow organizations to shift that functionality to the left, with the most innovative features, like an orchestration layer that simplifies the implementation and automation of security testing. As DevOps and security testing evolves, scans can now be automatically triggered, embedding results directly into the CI/CD pipelines.

By automating the steps required to scan code eliminates the need for time-consuming manual configuration of scans. It also allows us to publish and update scan findings. Modern automation tools also allow developers to:

• Catch and fix vulnerabilities during the coding phase. 
• Work with no disruptions, no new tools, no additional security reviews needed, etc. 
• Treat security bugs and functional bugs alike and allow them to immediately address those bugs within the code branch they are currently working on. 
• Reduce the overhead of manually opening, validating, and closing security tickets, without spending countless hours in bug tracking or ticketing management systems.

Read on to know more about Automation and its evolution.