By 2025, the first point of entry to business, customer engagement, and sensitive data will be via applications. However, each of the lines of code, API connections, and misconfigured permissions may become part of the threat vector. This is a pity when we consider that many organizations place emphasis on defending the network levels, yet the application-level weaknesses are unnoticed.
Security gap assessment fills such a blind spot. It determines gaps between your existing application security positioning and the best practices or compliance guidelines and systems that you want to adhere to.
This guide will also teach you how to complete a comprehensive, value-based application security gap analysis step-by-step. We will deconstruct which analysis to do, who the players are, available tools, and action to be taken after conducting the analysis.
What Is an Application Security Gap Assessment?
An application security gap assessment is a systematic review that estimates the conformity of your existing app security practices against methodologies such as OWASP ASVS, NIST, or ISO 27001.
It is aimed at highlighting the vulnerabilities, weak points, and any gaps in the application development life cycle (SDLC), from design to deployment.
Key Objectives:
- Identify exploitable vulnerabilities
- Evaluate development and DevSecOps practices
- Uncover misconfigurations, over-privileged access, or insecure integrations
- Align application security with regulatory or internal benchmarks
Step 1: Define Scope and Objectives
Start by describing what you would like to evaluate:
- Is it a web application, mobile application or cloud-native application, or a legacy application?
- Are you evaluating only the code, or also the infrastructure, APIs, and access controls?
- Do you want to align with OWASP Top 10, NIST, PCI DSS, or internal policies?
Scope is defined by: Detection of sensitive workflows (ex, login, payment, upload data), Deciding about what teams and environments to involve
- Endpoints, modules, and APIs listing
- Detection of sensitive work flows (ex: login, payment, upload data)
- Deciding about what teams and environments to involve
Tip: Clear scope avoids wasted effort and ensures focused results.
Step 2: Stack Inventory of the Applications
Create an inventory of all that makes the app work:
- Programming languages and frameworks used
- Backend services and databases
- Authentication and authorization systems
- Third-party components, libraries, or APIs
How can you protect what you do not know is there? Most risks of the applications lie in the unmonitored information, old libraries, or hidden APIs.
Step 3: Review Existing Security Controls
Assess the level of security solutions that exist:
- Secure coding standards and checklists
- SAST (Static Application Security Testing) tools
- DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing) tools
- Dependency scanning and SBOM tools
- Web Application Firewalls (WAFs)
- Authentication (MFA, OAuth, SSO)
Check if these controls:
- Are consistently applied across teams
- Generate actionable reports
- Have alerting, monitoring, and incident response workflows
Note: Several controls are in place, but incorrectly configured or outdated—this is a major gap.
Step 4: Threat Modeling
Before testing begins, build a threat model to:
- Map data flows and attack surfaces
- Identify trust boundaries and privilege escalation paths
- Prioritize components by risk
Systematically evaluate threat using models ( e.g., STRIDE or DREAD ).
This will aid in steering your penetration tests as well as the actions carried out during secure code reviews.
Step 5: Run Vulnerability Scanning and Manual Testing
Automated Scanning:
- Run SAST for code issues (e.g. input validation, hardcoded secrets)
- Run DAST on live environments for misconfigurations and business logic flaws
- Scan third-party packages for known CVEs
Manual Testing:
- Focus on complex attack paths (e.g. chaining broken access control + insecure direct object references)
- Check rate limitations, security of sessions, and error handling
- Check third-party packages against known CVEs
Combine tools like:
- OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite
- SonarQube, Snyk, GitHub Advanced Security
Step 6: Review DevSecOps and SDLC Integration
A security gap is not always a technical failure- it may be a process failure.
Review:
Do developers have secure coding? Is a security check involved in every build? Does CI/CD have automated testing?
- Do developers have secure coding?
- Is a security check involved in every build
- Does CI/CD have automated testing
Interview developers, testers, and DevOps to uncover:
- Where security is skipped under deadline pressure
- Where manual steps create inconsistency or exposure
Step 7: Assess Governance, Policy and Awareness
Even the best tools fail without good governance. Check if:
- You have written application security policies
- Developers know the policies and follow them
- Risk ratings and severity levels are defined consistently
- Incident response plans cover app-specific threats
Look for signs of compliance drift, especially in fast-moving teams or M&A environments.
Step 8: Prioritize Gaps and Report Findings
It affects either users or data, or business continuity
- Risk severity (Critical, High, Medium, Low)
- Likelihood of exploitation
- Impact on users, data, or business continuity
- Ease of remediation
Deliverables:
- Executive summary with top risks and recommendations
- Technical breakdown with evidence, screenshots, and CVE references
- Compliance mapping (e.g., PCI DSS Req 6.6, OWASP A3)
Your report must not detail problems; it must give direction.
Step 9: Build a Remediation Plan
Develop a remediation plan in which:
- Gives out ownership of every problem
- Incorporates schedules as well as its policies on risk acceptance
- Suggests quick wins and long-term hardening steps
After fixing, apply a re-test in order to make sure that it is closed.
Final Thoughts
Application security gap analysis moves beyond scanners. It integrates code, infrastructure, policy and process audit to provide a holistic picture of your app risk.
This is not a choice in the modern environment of quick releases, third-party dependencies, and the increasing threat to the supply chain.
