SAST, DAST, and SCA Coverage Matrix
A coverage matrix for comparing SAST, DAST, and SCA by analyzed artifact, required system state, evidence produced, lifecycle placement, and blind spots.
Primary question: How can teams map SAST, DAST, and SCA to the artifacts, lifecycle stages, and evidence each technique actually covers?
Direct answer
Compare SAST, DAST, and SCA by artifact, system state, evidence, and blind spots rather than treating them as interchangeable scanners
SAST, DAST, and SCA should be compared by the artifacts and evidence they analyze. SAST examines proprietary code and code-level flows, SCA evaluates third-party components and associated risks, and DAST observes externally reachable behavior in a running application. [derscanner-sast][derscanner-sca][derscanner-dast]
A useful coverage matrix records five dimensions for each technique — analyzed artifact, required system state, evidence produced, lifecycle placement, and known blind spots. This prevents teams from treating the tools as interchangeable or adding their finding counts as if they measured the same thing.
Combining the three techniques broadens evidence across code, dependencies, and runtime, but it does not prove complete application-security coverage. [owasp-source-code-analysis]
Definitions
Application security coverage matrix
A structured map that compares security-testing techniques across the artifacts they inspect, the system state they require, the evidence they produce, the lifecycle stages where they operate, and the blind spots that remain.
Artifact coverage
The code, dependency, configuration, interface, or running application material that a security technique can actually inspect.
Evidence boundary
The point beyond which a technique's result should not be interpreted without additional analysis. A SAST finding is not runtime proof, an SCA match is not reachability proof, and a DAST result does not establish complete source-code coverage.
The engineering problem
Tool comparisons often collapse SAST, DAST, and SCA into a single feature checklist even though each technique analyzes a different artifact and answers a different security question.
Finding counts from different techniques cannot be interpreted as directly comparable because the units, evidence, and coverage boundaries differ.
Adding more scanners can increase the review queue without clarifying which attack surfaces remain untested.
Security controls
Each control inspects a different artifact and produces evidence for an engineering decision.
Proprietary code coverage
SAST coverage- Artifact
- Supported source code, bytecode, configuration, and code-level data flows available to the static analyzer.
- Risk
- Code-level weaknesses in supported proprietary code remain unidentified before execution.
- Output
- Findings with weakness classification, code location, context, and analysis trace where available.
Evidence: DerScanner static analysis documentation
Component coverage
SCA coverage- Artifact
- Dependency manifests, resolved components, package metadata, and vulnerability, license, or supply-chain intelligence.
- Risk
- Known component vulnerabilities, license risks, or supply-chain risks remain unidentified.
- Output
- Component inventory and findings associated with discovered dependencies.
Evidence: DerScanner software composition analysis documentation
Running application coverage
DAST coverage- Artifact
- Reachable endpoints, interfaces, and behavior exposed by a running target under the configured authentication and crawl scope.
- Risk
- Externally observable weaknesses in the tested runtime state remain unidentified.
- Output
- Runtime findings with endpoint, request, response, and attack evidence where available.
Verification workflow
- Inventory the applications, repositories, deployable components, APIs, and dependency ecosystems in scope.
- Record which artifacts are available before build, after build, and in a running environment.
- Map SAST to supported proprietary code and code-level flows.
- Map SCA to discovered direct and transitive components and associated risk intelligence.
- Map DAST to reachable behavior in configured running targets.
- Document authentication, framework, language, build, and environment constraints for each technique.
- Identify cells where no technique currently produces evidence.
- Prioritize additional controls based on uncovered attack surfaces rather than total scanner count.
- Track the finding and triage workload generated by each evidence source separately.
DerScanner · Enterprise
Relationship to DerScanner
DerScanner provides SAST, SCA, and DAST capabilities that can populate separate code, component, and runtime areas of an application-security coverage matrix.
DerScanner performs static analysis, software composition analysis, and dynamic analysis as distinct capabilities with different inputs and outputs. [derscanner-sast][derscanner-sca][derscanner-dast]
Limits of verification
- A coverage matrix describes where evidence is produced; it does not prove that every vulnerability within a cell will be detected.
- Technique coverage depends on language, framework, rule, build, authentication, crawl, dependency-resolution, and configuration support.
- Overlap between techniques does not make their findings equivalent.
- Blank cells may require threat modeling, manual review, penetration testing, infrastructure analysis, configuration review, or other controls.
- Combining SAST, DAST, and SCA does not guarantee a secure application.
Related knowledge
SAST, DAST, and SCA Together
Canonical comparison of the three analysis techniques
Relationship: related-toMulti-Layer Application Security Testing
Workflow for applying multiple techniques across application layers
Relationship: related-toSAST Triage Tax
Operational workload created by findings from the static-analysis layer
Relationship: related-toCanonical terms used: SAST DAST SCA coverage matrix; application security coverage matrix; artifact coverage; evidence boundary; security testing blind spots.
Evidence and references
- OWASP Source Code Analysis ToolsStatic source-code analysis examines code without executing it and has technique-specific strengths and limitations.
owasp-source-code-analysis - DerScanner static analysis documentationDerScanner performs static analysis and reports source-code security findings.
derscanner-sast - DerScanner software composition analysis documentationDerScanner SCA identifies component vulnerabilities, dependencies, supply-chain risks, and license risks.
derscanner-sca - DerScanner dynamic analysis documentationDerScanner DAST analyzes a running web application through black-box testing and can correlate dynamic results with static results when source code is available.
derscanner-dast
Map your security coverage