Addressing False Positives in Application Security

This whitepaper discusses the challenges posed by false positives in application security (AppSec) and the limitations of traditional security models. It outlines how legacy scanning technologies generate a high volume of erroneous alerts, which complicates the security process for organizations. The document details the impact of these false positives on AppSec teams, including the diversion of resources to manual triage and the resulting misalignment between security and engineering teams. It emphasizes the need for a shift towards runtime security solutions that provide accurate vulnerability feedback and prioritize exploitability. By leveraging runtime observability, organizations can gain context that differentiates between theoretical vulnerabilities and those that are genuinely exploitable in production environments. The paper also highlights the inefficiencies caused by outdated scanning tools and the importance of actionable intelligence in maintaining a secure and efficient development cycle.