The top 3 application security metrics every engineering team should track

AI-generated code and the rise of agentic workflows have increased the need for engineering teams to protect their ever-expanding software surface area from security vulnerabilities. Having the right tools to measure, track, and improve your application’s security posture is essential—as is collecting the right metrics to keep teams informed and aligned. Teams that adopt application security metrics as part of their definition of software maturity can continuously monitor how the changing threat landscape affects their overall velocity and software quality.

In this article, we’ll share the top three application security metrics every engineering team should track, along with tooling recommendations to ensure accurate metrics and awareness across teams.

Top 3 application security metrics to track

1. Code coverage

• What it measures: Percentage of code scanned, types of scans performed, and at what frequency
• Why it matters: Comprehensive coverage leads to faster detection of vulnerabilities introduced through code.
• How to track: Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools, Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) tools, Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools, and Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) tools.
  

2. Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR)

• What it measures: The average time taken to resolve identified security vulnerabilities.
• Why it matters: Prompt remediation demonstrates strong security culture and mitigates risk.
• How to track: Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools, Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) tools, Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools, and Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) tools.
  

3. Number of services with vulnerabilities (by severity)

• What it measures: Services and dependencies containing vulnerabilities across your software ecosystem
• Why it matters: Illuminates risk exposure and allows you to address critical vulnerabilities with urgency.
• How to track: Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools, Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) tools, Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools, and Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) tools.

How to track application security metrics 

Implementing the right security tools ensures accurate tracking and metrics gathering. While security testing tools fall into several categories, there's considerable overlap as tools expand to cover more surface area. The most common categories include Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), Software Composition Analysis (SCA), and Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST)–all of which are useful and necessary in achieving a comprehensive view of application security posture.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

• Purpose: Scans source code for vulnerabilities early in development.
• Popular Tools: SonarQube, Snyk, Veracode, Synopsys
  

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)

• Purpose: Simulates external attacks on applications.
  Popular Tools: Acunetix, Veracode, StackHawk
  

Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST)

• Purpose: Combines aspects of SAST and DAST for real-time vulnerability assessment.
• Popular Tools: Synopsys, Contrast Security
  

Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

• Purpose: Scans third-party libraries for known vulnerabilities.
• Popular Tools: Veracode, Snyk, Synopsys
  

Surfacing application security metrics in an internal developer portal

It’s not uncommon to have multiple security solutions in place across your software ecosystem, leaving teams with alerts and metrics living across many different tools. An internal developer portal can centralize activity from many different security integrations in a single hub–within the context of everything developers need for building, deploying, and maintaining software.

Beyond centralizing activity and alerts, an internal developer portal should support your organization’s application security initiatives in the following ways:

Integrate with security scanning tools 

• Incorporate real-time vulnerability data from SAST, DAST, IAST, and SCA tools and surface alerts directly within your developer portal, enabling real-time response to critical issues.
  

Automate security checks for every service

• Conduct automated security checks to track ongoing health and status of your services.
  

Define security best practices for your engineering organization

•  Define best practices that can be checked for across services to monitor trends in software and security maturity over time.
  

Customize dashboards for application security metrics

• Build graphs and dashboards for important metrics at the team and organization level to monitor progress and keep teams prioritizing the most important things.
  

The Internal Developer Portal for Secure Development

OpsLevel is an internal developer portal built to facilitate continuous improvement across all areas of your software ecosystem, from observability to security. OpsLevel integrates with popular security tools like Snyk, Veracode, and Synopsys to centralize alerts, insights, and metrics directly within your developer portal.

With OpsLevel, you can:

• Centralize security alerts and important information from security tools in a single place, with support for Snyk, Veracode, Snyopsys, SonarQube, and more.
• Run security checks against services to ensure you are following best practices, like collecting vulnerability data from scanning tools or ensuring no secrets are stored in code.  
• Define security best practices using OpsLevel’s Service Maturity Rubric and assess every service’s alignment and compliance with security standards–as part of your organization’s definition of software maturity.
• Build dashboards for key application security metrics–such as code coverage and Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR)–to track progress over time using OpsLevel’s custom widgets.

OpsLevel makes it easy for engineering teams to track application security metrics and ensure application security best practices are applied across services. Set up time with one of our technical experts to learn more or watch our demo on OpsLevel for security teams.