SAST Best Practices & False Positive Management

The biggest challenge with SAST isn't finding vulnerabilities—it's managing the noise. Here's how to make SAST actionable.

The False Positive Problem

SAST tools often report issues that aren't real vulnerabilities:

Finding Type	Description	Action
True Positive	Real vulnerability	Fix it
False Positive	Not actually exploitable	Suppress it
True Negative	No issue, correctly ignored	None
False Negative	Missed vulnerability	Dangerous!

A noisy SAST tool leads to:

• Alert fatigue: Developers ignore all findings
• Wasted time: Investigating non-issues
• Slow pipelines: Reviewing hundreds of findings

Tuning SAST Rules

1. Start with High-Confidence Rules

# Semgrep: Start strict, expand later
semgrep --config p/security-audit \
        --severity ERROR \
        --exclude-rule "generic.secrets.gitleaks.*"

2. Create Baseline Files

Track known findings to avoid re-reviewing:

# Create baseline (first run)
semgrep --config auto --json > .semgrep-baseline.json

# Run with baseline (subsequent runs)
semgrep --config auto --baseline-commit HEAD~1

3. Customize Rule Severity

# .semgrep/settings.yml
rules:
  - id: hardcoded-password
    severity: ERROR  # Block pipeline

  - id: missing-csrf-token
    severity: WARNING  # Warn but don't block

Suppressing False Positives

Inline Suppression (When Necessary)

# nosemgrep: hardcoded-password
TEST_PASSWORD = "test123"  # This is intentional for testing

# Or with reason
password = get_from_vault()  # nosemgrep: hardcoded-password (fetched from Vault)

File-Level Exclusions

# .semgrep.yml
exclude:
  - "tests/**"
  - "*.test.js"
  - "migrations/**"
  - "vendor/**"

Pattern-Based Suppression

# Suppress specific patterns
rules:
  - id: sql-injection
    patterns:
      - pattern: cursor.execute($QUERY)
      - pattern-not: cursor.execute($QUERY, $PARAMS)  # Parameterized = safe

Triage Workflow

Establish a consistent process:

┌─────────────┐
│ New Finding │
└──────┬──────┘
       │
       ▼
┌─────────────────┐     Yes    ┌──────────────┐
│ Is it a real    │ ─────────▶ │ Create Issue │
│ vulnerability?  │            │ & Fix        │
└────────┬────────┘            └──────────────┘
         │ No
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐     Yes    ┌──────────────┐
│ Will it recur   │ ─────────▶ │ Update Rule  │
│ frequently?     │            │ or Baseline  │
└────────┬────────┘            └──────────────┘
         │ No
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│ Add inline      │
│ suppression     │
└─────────────────┘

Metrics to Track

Metric	Target	Why
False Positive Rate	< 20%	Trust in tool
Mean Time to Triage	< 1 hour	Developer velocity
Mean Time to Remediate	< 1 week	Security posture
Findings per 1000 LOC	Trending down	Improvement
Suppression Rate	< 30%	Rule quality

Best Practices Checklist

Tool Configuration

• Start with curated rule sets (e.g., p/security-audit)
• Exclude test files and generated code
• Set appropriate severity thresholds
• Enable incremental scanning for PRs

Process

• Assign security champions to triage
• Document suppression decisions
• Review suppressions quarterly
• Track trends over time

Developer Experience

• Provide clear remediation guidance
• Link to security training
• Enable IDE integration for instant feedback
• Celebrate security fixes

Common SAST Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern	Problem	Solution
Scan everything	Noise overwhelms signal	Start with critical paths
Block on all findings	Developers disable tool	Block only on critical/high
No baseline	Re-review old findings	Create and maintain baseline
No ownership	Findings rot	Assign to code owners
Set and forget	Rules become stale	Review rules quarterly

In the next module, we'll tackle dependency and container security with SCA tools. :::