NIST 800-53 REV 5 • SYSTEM AND SERVICES ACQUISITION
SA-11(9) — Interactive Application Security Testing
Require the developer of the system, system component, or system service to employ interactive application security testing tools to identify flaws and document the results.
CMMC Practice Mapping
No direct CMMC mapping
NIST 800-171 Mapping
No direct NIST 800-171 mapping
Related Controls
No related controls listed
Supplemental Guidance
Interactive (also known as instrumentation-based) application security testing is a method of detecting vulnerabilities by observing applications as they run during testing. The use of instrumentation relies on direct measurements of the actual running applications and uses access to the code, user interaction, libraries, frameworks, backend connections, and configurations to directly measure control effectiveness. When combined with analysis techniques, interactive application security testing can identify a broad range of potential vulnerabilities and confirm control effectiveness. Instrumentation-based testing works in real time and can be used continuously throughout the system development life cycle.
Practitioner Notes
Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) combines elements of SAST and DAST by instrumenting the running application to observe its behavior from the inside. This catches vulnerabilities that pure SAST or DAST might miss.
Example 1: Deploy an IAST agent (Contrast Security, HCL AppScan) in your test environment alongside your functional test suite. As functional tests exercise the application, the IAST agent monitors internal execution for security issues — data flows, tainted inputs, and unsafe function calls.
Example 2: Use IAST during your QA testing cycle so that security testing happens automatically as functional testers exercise the application. The IAST agent identifies vulnerabilities in real-time with precise code location and data flow information, making them faster and easier for developers to fix than traditional scan-based findings.