Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional Practice Exam 2025 - Free Practice Questions and Study Guide

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) focuses on assessing an application while it is running, which is critical for identifying vulnerabilities that may be exploited by attackers during the application's operational phase. This testing method simulates external attacks on the application in its environment to discover issues related to security that could be present when the application is actively being used.

By testing in this manner, DAST helps ensure that the application's security posture is effective under real-world conditions, allowing for the acknowledgment of potential security risks that may not be evident when the application is not operational. It takes advantage of the application's live interaction with users and other systems to expose vulnerabilities such as input validation errors, misconfigurations, and session management weaknesses.

The other options address different aspects of software evaluation. For example, evaluating scalability relates to performance, compliance with standards pertains to development practices, and assessing security in a non-operating state focuses on static analysis, rather than the dynamic context within which an application functions. Thus, the core purpose of DAST is indeed related to analyzing applications in their operational state to enhance security measures effectively.