The best approach to ASPM (with proof)

A (very) brief history of ASPM

In the early 2000s, application security testing took separate paths as different attack surfaces emerged. Static analysis (SAST) focused on scanning source code for insecure patterns, dynamic testing (DAST) probed running applications for exploitable flaws, and newer categories like IAST, SCA, and container security evolved to cover APIs, open-source components, and cloud-native architectures. 

Each solved a slice of the problem. But as organizations adopted multiple AST tools, they inherited a new challenge: managing an ever-growing pile of overlapping alerts from siloed tools that lacked context. Most of the tools generated false positives (or negatives), and teams would have to manually sort through duplicate alerts. The massive volume of findings these tools produced overwhelmed teams, sowed distrust in the tools themselves, and compounded friction throughout the CI/CD process.

It was clear organizations needed a simple, “single pane” picture of the overall security posture of their attack surfaces – one dashboard that executives could trust, take action from, and chart improvement by. Enter Application Security Posture Management (ASPM), the industry’s response to the growing problem of AST noise and alert fatigue. The term was only coined in the last couple of years, but Gartner estimates that 80% of regulated organizations who test applications will have incorporated some form of ASPM by 2027. 

In this whitepaper, we’ll explore the capabilities of ASPM, look at different vendor approaches, and recommend what works best. By the end, you’ll have the context and necessary details you need to find the right solution for your organization. 

What, exactly, does ASPM mean?

ASPM solutions provide continuous oversight of application risk by identifying, correlating, and ranking security issues at every stage of the software lifecycle – from initial development through production. They pull in results from multiple security tools, then consolidate and interpret that data to make it easier to review, prioritize, and remediate. 

Serving as an orchestration and management layer across the AppSec stack, ASPM platforms help enforce security policies and maintain control. By unifying all application security findings into a single view, they streamline issue management and remediation while delivering a complete, real-time picture of an application’s security posture and risk profile.

In general, ASPMs are designed to do six things:

1. Correlate the findings of multiple AST tools.
2. Verify and prioritize the most critical vulnerabilities 
3. Present issues in a single view
4. Trace issues back to their source
5. Auto-deliver remediation steps to the engineers responsible 
6. Provide a visible and dependable “risk score” as an organizational benchmark

For vendors, the challenge comes in doing all of these well. Typically, ASPM providers approach goals from three different angles.  

The three vendor paths to ASPM

There are three ways AppSec companies enter the ASPM market. 

1. Static Application Security Testing (SAST)-first: SAST vendors that started adding orchestration features to their offering.
   
   
2. Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)-first: DAST providers that started from a runtime context, prioritizing findings based on exploitability, then adding ASPM-like features to their scanner.
   
   
3. Application Security Orchestration and Correlation (ASOC)-first: Integration and workflow automation offerings specializing in notification consolidation and task orchestration across different scanners and AST tool providers. 

ASOC vs. ASPM: A quick note 

You probably noticed that our ASOC definition sounds a lot like ASPM, which is why most people view ASOC as the precursor to ASPM. The ASOC tools that emerged in the 2010s could show different scanning results in a single pane and streamline vulnerabilities through deduplication. 

However, ASOC lacked business context and focused mostly on vulnerabilities before production. Even though findings were correlated, the sheer volume of alerts meant that noise was still a problem. ASOC worked well for simple applications, but the complexity of distributed cloud-native applications made scaling difficult. As app models changed, these tools had to be reconfigured to accommodate them. 

ASPM goes a step further than moving data and orchestrating tasks. It aims to quiet noise with deep risk context, scoring, and policy enforcement across the SDLC. But every platform has their strengths and weaknesses. Which ASPM approach is best?

Finding the best ASPM

Now, we know what ASPM is and we understand the players. Let’s get to the heart of the issue: How do you choose the right ASPM platform? 

Many ASPMs offer similar capabilities. They can deduplicate results, show alerts in a single view, and help organizations get a feel for their overall risk posture. But are they actually solving the core pain points of AppSec teams?

At the end of the day, security teams are chasing two things:

1. Absolute assurance that the vulnerabilities they’re addressing are the most critical to the business (validation and prioritization).
   
   
2. The ability to connect those validated vulnerabilities to line-level code efficiently (automation and remediation). 

If security teams had these, they could move at the speed of development with confidence. But this is still a challenge, and it’s where the differences between ASPM vendors really start to emerge. 

Up to now, the three different vendor paths have struggled to fully deliver on all six ASPM goals at once. They might do one or two things well, but most solutions don’t have the right foundation to grow into the holistic platform AppSec teams need. 

Recently, however, that changed. 

The best model for AppSec platforms

A quick thought exercise: If you could go back to the early 2000s and build an AppSec platform for the 2020s and beyond, how would you build it? 

Imagine you jump into a time machine, travel back, and launch a startup. You split your startup into two teams.

Product team 1: Focused solely on building the fastest, most accurate runtime scanner. Why runtime? Because you know that’s the only place future attackers will operate. You know that if you build the best proof-based scanner, you’ll have a single source of truth for threat prioritization. 

Product team 2: Focused on building the smartest, most capable correlation and orchestration platform – integratable with any AST tool on the market. You know that runtime is only part of the picture. If it can’t communicate with other tools and automate fixes from this foundation of proof, it won’t be worth much in the years to come.  

As each team is a pioneer in their respective fields, over time they develop industry-leading solutions for the most critical elements of AppSec. And since both products operate within the same platform, you’ve now got a future-proof product for years to come. 

Okay, okay, you caught us. We’re mythologizing the origin story of Invicti a little bit. But that scenario isn’t far from how we came to be. 

Invicti is what you get when you combine the industry’s best DAST with an innovative ASPM pioneer: It’s the best parts of Netsparker, Acunetix, and Kondukto in one seamless, AI-powered platform. We believe this unique foundation is what separates us, and that we’re the best model for modern AppSec platforms.

Why Invicti ASPM?

ASPM can only be as effective as the data it ingests. If the inputs are noisy or unverified, the outputs (dashboards, priorities, and workflows) will be equally noisy. An inadequate understanding of actual risk leads directly to false priorities, which leaves the core promise of ASPM unrecognized. 

This is one of Invicti’s core differentiators. And we’re not the only ones confident in our runtime approach. As Dr. Edward Amoroso notes in his TAG research report, our proof-based scanning technology is a game-changing tool for AppSec teams. For decades, we’ve specialized in producing vulnerability data that developers can trust, prioritize, and remediate efficiently. 

With our acquisition of Kondukto, Invicti ASPM delivers that trusted data without requiring an additional orchestration layer to make the results usable. Our exhaustive list of integrations makes us an originator, correlator, and orchestrator of accurate risk data. That means industry-low false positives, faster remediation, and a truer reflection of an organization’s real security posture. 

Unlike closed systems that force tool choices, Invicti ASPM is built to work with the tools teams are already using. We support and contribute to the open-source security ecosystem, provide an open-source CLI for flexible automation, and orchestrate dozens of widely used open-source and commercial scanners side by side. It’s a platform that respects existing investments, empowers developers, and strengthens security without disruption.

So, what’s the best approach to ASPM? It starts with proof, and becomes fully realized through open integration, open-source tooling, and open visibility into the risks that matter most. Want to see what Invicti ASPM can do for your team? Schedule a demo to see what's possible.

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