CISOs today face audits that demand traceability of secure code practices across the software development life cycle (SDLC). Meeting PCI-DSS 4.0, GDPR, or NIST SSDF requirements is about securing code and proving it.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) plays a critical role in helping organizations meet these obligations by identifying and remediating vulnerabilities early in the development process. In fact, OWASP recognizes static analysis as key to the implementation phase of the SDLC.
But beyond checking boxes, a well-integrated SAST tool can support a proactive DevSecOps culture, reduce risk exposure, and make compliance a byproduct of good security hygiene.
As modern compliance mandates are more prescriptive about secure software development practices than ever, compliance frameworks emphasize secure software development, vulnerability management, and risk-based controls as essential to protecting sensitive data.
From a compliance perspective, SAST offers two critical benefits:
- Proactive risk reduction by identifying and remediating flaws early in the SDLC, well before the software reaches production.
- Traceable audit evidence of secure coding activities, policies, and controls applied at the code level.
This shifts security left, improving risk posture and aligning development practices with compliance expectations.
Reducing Audit Fatigue with SAST
One of the biggest challenges in preparing for compliance audits is compiling the right documentation. Traditional approaches often require manual screenshots, exported logs, and spreadsheets. Modern SAST tools address this pain by centralizing scan data and making it easy to report on scan coverage, policy enforcement, and remediation activities and provide everything in a single compliance dashboard and easy-to-generate reports.
Audit-ready reports can show:
- When code was scanned and by whom
- What vulnerabilities were found and how they were resolved
- How findings map to recognized security frameworks (e.g., OWASP Top 10) or regulatory requirements (e.g., PCI-DSS).
This traceability is critical not only for external auditors but also for internal GRC teams seeking ongoing assurance that policies are being followed.
SAST and the OWASP Top 10: Supporting Compliance Objectives
The OWASP Top 10 is a widely accepted standard for assessing the most critical web application security risks. While not a formal compliance framework, OWASP Top 10 is widely used by regulators and auditors to assess application security maturity. One notable inclusion in the latest list is Software and Data Integrity Failures, which focuses on issues arising from untrusted software updates, CI/CD pipeline flaws, and insecure deserialization.
These risks directly relate to compliance, particularly when handling sensitive or regulated data. A robust SAST scan can detect indicators of these vulnerabilities before they are embedded in production systems.
For example, a development team might unknowingly introduce a vulnerable deserialization function into their application during a routine update. Left unchecked, this could lead to remote code execution, an issue flagged under this OWASP category, and one that could result in non-compliance with regulations like PCI-DSS or HIPAA, which mandate protection against unauthorized system access. A SAST scan with rules mapped to OWASP Top 10 categories would immediately flag this insecure coding pattern during development, enabling the team to remediate the issue before it reaches production.
In these instances, CISOs should remember that compliance is more than a series of rules and processes to check off and forget. It’s a continuous process, and SAST gives CISOs and AppSec leaders the ability to validate that every build aligns with policy and risk thresholds.
In modern DevSecOps practices, security is embedded into every stage of the SDLC, involving SAST – along with other application security scanning functions like SCA and DAST – is most effective in early SDLC phases like coding and build, complementing other tools like DAST in later phases. DevSecOps is the gold standard, but in practice developers need to feel enabled rather than hindered by processes that ensure safe software development and compliance.
Some SAST providers solve this by providing in-IDE scans so developers get feedback as they code, offering fast, lightweight scans to speed up reviews of incremental changes, and enabling auto-remediation that pinpoints the best place to fix vulnerabilities with one-click GenAI suggestions.
Business Impact: Compliance as a Byproduct of Secure Development
Compliance can’t succeed if it slows down development. One of the biggest misconceptions is that AppSec controls, including SAST, are only valuable when managed centrally. In reality, the most effective programs push capabilities closer to where code is written.
Modern SAST tools integrate directly into the developer’s IDE and CI/CD pipelines, providing near-instant feedback. Some tools like Checkmarx even offer:
- Incremental scans that run only on changed code
- IDE extensions that highlight vulnerable lines in real-time
- AI-assisted remediation suggestions to guide fixes
This developer-friendly approach reduces the perception of security as a blocker. It builds a culture where compliance becomes a side effect of good coding practices.
SAST testing aligns directly with the requirements of modern day developers and can even provide predefined presets, or collections of vulnerability queries that define the scope of the SAST scan, for several common and specific frameworks to help speed up the process. With reporting capabilities that map findings to compliance frameworks, SAST serves as more than a security measure, playing the role of an audit-ready compliance control. Using SAST effectively can reduce audit fatigue, support documentation requirements, and demonstrate due diligence.
Checkmarx provides the following presets and more to make compliance audits easier on security teams and developers alike:
- HIPAA – For sensitive patient data-related security risks according to the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliance guidelines.
- PCI – For credit card payment application security risks according to the PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance guidelines.
- FISMA – For applications in scope of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, with security risks commonly identified in federal standards like NIST SP 800-53
- NIST – For secure development practices based on NIST Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) and related guidance.
- OWASP Mobile Top 10 – For the top 10 mobile application security risks according to the OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) compliance guidelines for 2024.
- SANS Top 25 – For high-impact software weaknesses as identified by the SANS Institute and MITRE, often used in secure coding benchmarks.
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