Integrating DAST with OWASP ZAP in Pipeline

When to Use

• When testing running web applications for vulnerabilities like XSS, SQLi, CSRF, and misconfigurations
• When SAST alone is insufficient and runtime behavior testing is required
• When compliance mandates dynamic security testing of web applications before production
• When testing APIs (REST/GraphQL) for authentication, authorization, and injection flaws
• When establishing continuous DAST scanning in staging environments before production deployment

Do not use for scanning source code (use SAST), for scanning dependencies (use SCA), or for infrastructure configuration scanning (use IaC scanning tools).

Prerequisites

• OWASP ZAP Docker image or installed locally (zaproxy/zap-stable or zaproxy/action-*)
• Running target application accessible from the CI/CD runner (staging URL or Docker service)
• ZAP scan rules configuration (optional, for tuning)
• OpenAPI/Swagger specification for API scanning (optional)

Workflow

Step 1: Configure ZAP Baseline Scan in GitHub Actions

# .github/workflows/dast-scan.yml
name: DAST Security Scan

on:
  deployment_status:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      target_url:
        description: 'Target URL to scan'
        required: true

jobs:
  zap-baseline:
    name: ZAP Baseline Scan
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    services:
      webapp:
        image: ${{ github.repository }}:${{ github.sha }}
        ports:
          - 8080:8080
        options: --health-cmd="curl -f http://localhost:8080/health" --health-interval=10s --health-timeout=5s --health-retries=5

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: ZAP Baseline Scan
        uses: zaproxy/action-baseline@v0.12.0
        with:
          target: 'http://webapp:8080'
          rules_file_name: '.zap/rules.tsv'
          cmd_options: '-a -j'
          allow_issue_writing: false

      - name: Upload ZAP Report
        if: always()
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: zap-baseline-report
          path: report_html.html

Step 2: Configure ZAP Full Scan for Comprehensive Testing

  zap-full-scan:
    name: ZAP Full Scan
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: ZAP Full Scan
        uses: zaproxy/action-full-scan@v0.12.0
        with:
          target: ${{ github.event.inputs.target_url || 'https://staging.example.com' }}
          rules_file_name: '.zap/rules.tsv'
          cmd_options: '-a -j -T 60'

      - name: Upload Reports
        if: always()
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: zap-full-report
          path: |
            report_html.html
            report_json.json

Step 3: Configure API Scan with OpenAPI Specification

  zap-api-scan:
    name: ZAP API Scan
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: ZAP API Scan
        uses: zaproxy/action-api-scan@v0.12.0
        with:
          target: 'https://staging.example.com/api/openapi.json'
          format: openapi
          rules_file_name: '.zap/api-rules.tsv'
          cmd_options: '-a -j'

Step 4: Configure ZAP Scan Rules

# .zap/rules.tsv
# Rule ID	Action (IGNORE/WARN/FAIL)	Description
10003	IGNORE	# Vulnerable JS Library (handled by SCA)
10015	WARN	# Incomplete or No Cache-control Header
10021	FAIL	# X-Content-Type-Options Missing
10035	FAIL	# Strict-Transport-Security Missing
10038	FAIL	# Content Security Policy Missing
10098	IGNORE	# Cross-Domain Misconfiguration (CDN)
40012	FAIL	# Cross Site Scripting (Reflected)
40014	FAIL	# Cross Site Scripting (Persistent)
40018	FAIL	# SQL Injection
40019	FAIL	# SQL Injection (MySQL)
40032	FAIL	# .htaccess Information Leak
90033	FAIL	# Loosely Scoped Cookie

Step 5: Run ZAP with Docker Compose for Local Testing

# docker-compose.zap.yml
version: '3.8'
services:
  webapp:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:8080/health"]
      interval: 10s
      retries: 5

  zap:
    image: zaproxy/zap-stable:latest
    depends_on:
      webapp:
        condition: service_healthy
    command: >
      zap-baseline.py
        -t http://webapp:8080
        -r /zap/wrk/report.html
        -J /zap/wrk/report.json
        -c /zap/wrk/rules.tsv
        -I
    volumes:
      - ./zap-reports:/zap/wrk
      - ./.zap/rules.tsv:/zap/wrk/rules.tsv

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