We are moving toward a DevSecOps model where "Security is everyone's responsibility." However, our DAST and SAST tools are generating hundreds of false positives that my QA team doesn't know how to triage. What is the standard process for filtering these "Vulnerability Data Types" so we only focus on critical exploits like SQL Injection or XSS?
3 answers
The most common mistake is turning on "all rules" at once. Start by only enabling the "OWASP Top 10" critical filters. In your pipeline, set a "Fail" threshold only for Critical and High vulnerabilities. For anything else, just log it to a backlog for the security team to review later. You should also implement "IAST" (Interactive Application Security Testing), which is often more accurate than DAST because it sees the code execution from the inside, significantly reducing false positives. By integrating security into the "Functional Test" phase, your QA team starts to see security flaws as just another type of "bug," which helps shift the culture toward safety.
Are you training your QA engineers in basic "Penetration Testing" or just relying on the automated tools to do the heavy lifting?
Use a "Vulnerability Management" platform like Snyk or SonarQube. They have built-in "Ignore" and "False Positive" tags that persist across scans.
I agree with Mary. Using Snyk has been a game changer for us. Once we mark a false positive, we never see it again, which keeps our scan reports clean and actionable.
Richard, we mostly rely on tools. Is manual Pen-testing necessary for every release? For every release, no—but for major version changes, yes. Automation is great for catching "known" patterns like outdated libraries (SCA), but it misses "Business Logic" flaws. For example, a tool won't realize that a user shouldn't be able to view another user's invoice just by changing an ID in the URL. That's where a human eye for security is irreplaceable.