This blog is part of our Platform Engineering series. For a deeper understanding of our perspective on platform engineering, check out our other posts:

In this post, we’re exploring how application security fits into the platform engineering mindset, and why traditional security models can’t keep up with today’s delivery speed.

The New Reality of Software Security

Today’s software development environment moves at breakneck speed. Cloud-native architectures, microservices, CI/CD pipelines, and multi-team delivery models have become the new normal. The Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) is moving faster than ever with new releases happening daily, or even hourly. And while this agility accelerates innovation, it also increases complexity and risk.

Traditional application security (AppSec) approaches were never designed for this world. Manual reviews, periodic penetration testing, or post-deployment scanning don’t align with rapid release cycles. These disconnected, siloed security models slow down development and often miss issues until it’s too late.

To make matters more urgent, developers are now expected to take on security responsibilities that were once owned by centralized AppSec teams. From dependency management to secure infrastructure-as-code, developers are increasingly on the front lines with limited time, training, or support.

Meanwhile, AI-assisted development is dramatically accelerating how code is written, copied, and deployed. But it also raises new questions: Is the generated code secure? Are new dependencies vetted? Are we introducing unknown vulnerabilities at machine speed?

In this new reality, software security must evolve from gatekeeping to enabling. It must be:

Fast enough to keep up with modern pipelines
Integrated enough to be used by real developers, in real tools
Smart enough to prioritize real risk, not just generate noise

Because one thing is clear: security cannot be an afterthought. But it also can’t be a bottleneck.

What Is AST and ASPM — and Why Should You Care?

If security is to become a natural part of software development, we need two things: tools that detect risks early, and systems that help us manage those risks intelligently. This is where Application Security Testing (AST) and Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) come in.

Application Security Testing (AST)

AST refers to the tools and practices used to scan software for security vulnerabilities before those issues make it to production. Modern AST platforms cover a broad set of attack surfaces, including:

Source code (Static Application Security Testing / SAST)
Open-source dependencies (Software Composition Analysis / SCA)
Infrastructure as Code (IaC scanning)
Containers and images
Secrets detection
And in more advanced cases, dynamic application testing (DAST)

The goal is to shift security left, closer to where code is written, so that vulnerabilities are caught earlier, fixed faster, and cost less to resolve.

Application Security Posture Management (ASPM)

While AST focuses on detection, ASPM focuses on control. It helps organizations answer the big-picture questions:

What vulnerabilities do we have and which ones actually matter?
Are all teams following security best practices?
Are we meeting our SLAs, policies, and compliance obligations?
Where are we improving, and where are we falling behind?

ASPM platforms aggregate security signals from across your SDLC and turn them into actionable, prioritized insights. They help security teams scale visibility and governance across dozens, or hundreds of repositories, pipelines, and teams.

Why You Need Both

AST and ASPM aren’t just security tools. They’re foundational elements of a modern, secure Software Development Lifecycle.

They empower developers with early feedback, reduce noise with smart prioritization, and help security teams govern risk without slowing innovation. Together, they enable what modern organizations actually need:

Secure-by-default development practices
Scalable and consistent security across all teams
Faster remediation and less context switching for developers
Clear reporting and risk metrics for leadership

In short: AST helps you find security problems. ASPM helps you solve them, and prove that you did.

Shift-Left Isn’t Enough

For years, “shift left” has been the rallying cry of modern application security. The idea was simple: bring security earlier into the software development lifecycle. Catch vulnerabilities in code, dependencies, and infrastructure before they reach production, when it’s cheaper, faster, and safer to fix them.

The intention was right. The results? Mixed at best.

Shift-left introduced more security tools into developer workflows, but not always in a way that made sense. Suddenly, developers were getting bombarded with static scan results, vague vulnerability reports, and unclear remediation steps, often right in the middle of trying to ship a feature. Alert fatigue set in. Security became just another red banner to ignore.

Meanwhile, security teams, now responsible for managing hundreds of findings across dozens of pipelines, struggled to keep up. Tools were in place, but ownership was unclear. Who was responsible for fixing what? How urgent was this vulnerability, really? Without proper triage, prioritization, and governance, shift-left often became “scatter left.”

Adding security early is only half the battle. Scaling security in a way that actually helps developers, without slowing them down or flooding them with noise, is the real challenge. Security teams can’t keep playing catch-up, they can’t be gatekeepers, they need to become enablers.

What’s needed now is a new model. One where security doesn’t just show up earlier, but shows up smarter: with context, automation, and workflows that fit how teams already work.

Because if security is going to scale with modern development, it has to feel less like a roadblock and more like a teammate.

What Developers and Security Teams Actually Need

Most developers don’t wake up thinking about security. They think about solving problems, shipping features, and delivering value. Security becomes part of the job, but only if it fits into the way they already work. That’s why the future of application security isn’t just about better scanning. It’s about better enablement, just as all the other aspects of Platform Engineering are.

Developers need fix guidance in their tools, not PDFs, dashboards, or delayed feedback. They need alerts that are prioritized, actionable, and embedded into their IDEs, pull requests, and tickets. They don’t need a new inbox. They need security to meet them where they are.

At the same time, security teams need unified visibility and thorough reporting. They need to understand which vulnerabilities actually matter across hundreds of services, repositories, and pipelines, and which ones are noise. They need a posture that scales with the organization, not a patchwork of disconnected tools and spreadsheets.

In short, both sides need:

One place to see what’s happening
One system that turns findings into action
One operating model that reduces noise and accelerates remediation

That model must be developer-first, but risk-informed. It must embed security as a service for developers and security teams, not as a blocker. And it must be scalable because every new team, repo, or deployment shouldn’t mean reinventing your security process from scratch.

Security doesn’t have to slow you down. In fact, when done right, it can become the system that speeds you up by reducing rework, preventing incidents, and aligning everyone around shared context. That’s the security platform modern teams are waiting for, and it’s exactly what MASS is designed to deliver.

Our Answer: Managed Application Security Service (MASS)

Most organizations already have security tools. The problem is they often run in silos, produce too much noise, and fail to scale across multiple teams. MASS solves this by turning security from a scattered set of scans into a fully managed, developer-first service. built to work the way modern teams actually build software.

What MASS Delivers

Built on the Snyk Developer Security Platform, MASS combines powerful Application Security Testing (AST) with human expertise, automation, and governance, embedding security directly into your SDLC without slowing it down. Our partnership with Snyk ensures access to benefits such as lower pricing, premium technical support and sandbox testing for new features and proof-of-concepts.

With MASS, you get:

Developer-first onboarding – A dedicated Developer Portal with integration guides, secure coding best practices, and CI/CD templates for GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, and Bitbucket.
Seamless workflow integration – Security scanning embedded into pull requests, build pipelines, and IDEs — where developers already work.
Automated triage and ticketing – Risk-based prioritization with automatic tickets for relevant vulnerabilities, aligned to agreed SLAs.
Fast, expert support – Quick support via agreed communication channels, plus direct access to security engineers for remediation guidance.
Continuous visibility – Real-time dashboards, monthly SLA and risk trend reports, and quarterly service reviews to track progress.
Scalable by design – Standardized templates, automated processes, and policy-as-code ensure security scales with every new team and repo.

Why Snyk + Managed Service?

We chose to build MASS on top of Snyk because Snyk gets it. It’s not just another scanning engine, it’s a developer-first security platform designed to work the way modern teams actually build software.

Snyk integrates natively into the tools developers already use: GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, popular IDEs, and CI/CD pipelines. Its developer-friendly UX, rich remediation guidance, and prebuilt integrations make adoption fast and frictionless, not an uphill battle.

The platform covers a wide attack surface including SAST, DAST, SCA, IaC, container security, SBOMs, and secrets detection, all in one unified place. That means fewer tools to manage, better coverage, and simpler operations.

Just as importantly, Snyk is built for scale. From small teams to global engineering orgs, Snyk’s performance, API capabilities, and enterprise governance controls ensure that security can keep up with your development velocity.

If you already use Snyk, MASS takes it further. We operate and continuously tune the platform, integrate it into your workflows, manage findings from detection to closure, and give your developers clear, actionable guidance, all while tracking KPIs and SLA performance.

This means you get:

Fewer false positives through continuous rule tuning.
Shorter remediation times.
Governance and compliance built into your development flow.
A single, unified operating model for application security.

The Result? Security is no longer a gate or an afterthought, it becomes an enabler. MASS helps you ship faster, reduce rework, and meet compliance without drowning in alerts. Whether you’re onboarding your first team or scaling secure development across hundreds of services, MASS grows with you.

Interested? Check out our Platform Engineering services and reach out to explore how we can help.

Snyk IDE plugin detects issues and educates developers.

WHAT’S NEXT

We’ll continue to explore how platform engineering can evolve to meet the needs of modern organizations. Stay tuned for future posts, where we’ll dive deeper into various aspects of platform engineering.

Modern Application Security: From Gatekeeping to Enabling