The incessant growth of smartphone usage in different scenarios has fueled the demand of web apps that feature superb functionality and pleasing interface. But this is not enough.

The smartphone proliferation has brought a significant change in the paradigm of everyone’s lifestyle. There are also the stats alluding that along with expanding mobile space, there is an increase in hacking case and theft of personal information & other data.

Therefore, today, besides developing a highly interactive web application, it is quintessential to implement the secure architecture with the website and web app. If the developers compromise on the security aspects, then there is a chance that they may soon witness a huge loss of business because the people will fear accessing the web app or doing any transaction through the application.

At present, there are various tools available in the market that help the programmers identify the flaws in the security system of the web application or to test that how vulnerable their web applications are. By helping the developers while testing the vulnerability of different elements, these tools are beneficial in various ways such as:

• Save Time: These tools save crucial time for the developers by providing the report instantly in an understandable format. Such a report helps the developers identify the potholes and correct them as early as possible.
• Identify Third Party Plugin: Most of the complex web apps require third party plugin. Secondly, there are various plugins available in the market. Hence, it is not easy to find, which is good plugin for the web app. The security testing tools empower the users to check the quality of plugin so that they can easily choose the best and deploy a secure system for the web app.
• Prevent Against Loss: The security testing tool provides the complete picture of security architecture and workflow of the web app that enables the application developers to rectify the architecture of the web app in order to prohibit the breaching of crucial information.
• Enhance Performance: By providing an insight to the technical flaws in the architecture of app, these tools enable the developers to optimize the performance of the web apps.

Today, there are free and premium web application security testing tools available in the marketplace. For your convenience, this blog covers a list of very imperative tools.

Let’s Explore Web App Security Testing Tool

1. Wapiti

Wapiti is a feature-rich web app security testing tool. It basically uses black-box scan approach to identify the vulnerable elements in the websites. This tool works like a fuzzer that basically inputs all types of values (random & invalid data as well) in the field and present the report on the output generated.

It can find out the various issues related to Database injection, Weak configuration, Potentially dangerous files and many more. Wapiti represents the issues in color code. This tool provides reports in different formats including JSON, XML, Text and others.

2. N-Stalker

N-Stalker is one of the most powerful web application security testing tools that empower the developers to assess the aspects of infrastructure of web app and server. This tool has been programmed to check the vulnerabilities related to the platform, web server, HTTP protocol, remote attack, remotes files and many more.

Besides all these issues, it also helps the coders discover the spot where chance of information leak is higher. In a nutshell, it provides full-fledge report on every imperative data that proves to be dangerous for the mobile users. Moreover, it has easy-to-use interface that speeds up the process of scanning the web application from every angle.

3. Skipfish

Skipfish is a user-friendly security testing tool that has been developed with the help of C program. This tool has been optimized for HTTP handling and can handle 2000 requests in a second. It can find the spectrum of security flaws and injection vectors as well.

This tool provides the interactive sitemap for the targeted site with the help of recursive crawl approach. The skipfish can run on Linux, Max OS, Windows and other platforms. Skipfish basically adopts heuristic approach and dictionary based probes for providing the informative report on different issues.

4. NetSparkar

NetSparker is a brilliantly developed security testing tool that can find the security threats and other flaws in the web application and the websites at the utmost ease. This tool has been optimized to spot various flaws related to SQL injection, Cross Site Scripting and other issues in every website and application running on any platform.

The tool comes with easy-to-use interface; thus, the developers, without wasting any time in learning how to use this tool, can spot the security flaws and fix those issues as early as possible. It uses the brilliant scanning methodology to provide the accurate data for the programmers.

5. WebSecurity

WebSecurity is a superbly designed testing tool that tends to make the users contented. This tool identifies various kinds of glitches with the help of smart discovery and fuzzing technology. It provides the report in a proper manner, which enables the users to discover the most important threat that needs to be sorted out at first.

It provides the integrated interface that delivers the entire information on the screen. This testing tool supports different interception modes. Moreover, there is an option to add custom filter, breakpoints and captures. Secondly, it has a separate panel for request and response.

6. OWASP WebScarab Project

WebScarab is a Java based web application security testing tool. It can run on various platforms. This tool allows the administrators to review different requests that are sent by browsers to the server. WebScarab empowers the developers to intercept HTTP and HTTPs communication.

This testing platform can easily be used by the coders, who are aware of HTTP protocol. It features a superbly designed interface that helps the developer fix the complex problem and find the vulnerabilities in the architecture of the application.

7. Scrawlr

Scrawlr is short form of SQL injection and crawler. This tools has been developed by HP Web Security Research Group and Microsoft Security Response Center. This tool has been programmed to crawl all the web pages and analyze the issues related to SQL injection. It empowers the developers to configure the proxy.

Scrawlr has been programmed to deliver no false positives. It can also identify the type of web server (SQL). It runs faster because it uses intelligent technology. Moreover, this is easy to download, install and use.

8. x5s

x5s is used to assess the issues regarding cross-site scripting. This tool basically injects ASCII code to help the quality analyst identify the flaws in XSS filters. The tool can detect the place where safe encoding is not applied. The tool helps the users understand how the issues related to encoding lead to XSS.

It works like an assistant to the tester as it speedily delivers the result in aggregate form for quick view. The tools has been programmed to identify when Unicode character transformation and non-shortest UTF-8 encoding breach the security filter. Here the testers just have to click the Show HotSpots, then x5s will showcase the areas of issues.

9. Exploit-Me

Exploit-Me is a package of security testing tools that are developed to automate the process of testing the various aspects of web application security. It is lightweight and user-friendly to provide seamless the experience to the testers.

This tool is programmed to determines various kinds of issues related to cross-site scripting. The tool comes with superb documentation that eases the way for the developers to understand how to use it easily.

10. Acunetix

Acunetix is an advanced security testing tool for web application. This tool has been programmed to scan the complex website’s architecture that also includes JavaScript and HTML based web application. Acuentix can scan around 500 types of vulnerabilities and issues. Along with this, it delivers minimum false positives.

It can detect the issues related to SQL injection, XXE, XSS, Host Header attacks and many others. Acunetix offers report in superb format that eases the way for the developers to quickly identify different kinds of threats and fix the flaws that may prove to be a threat to the security system of the web application.

Closing Thoughts

It is quintessential for all the web app developers that they should ensure that their web apps are secured at all levels. And, at present due to less time and high demand, it is not easy for the developers to deliver the standard web apps (features secure system and pleasing interface) in minimum time. Therefore, it is better to use the web app security testing tool to identify the flaws and remove those flows.

Hope that now you can find the suitable tool for your application. You can also share your experience with any of the security testing tools that you are using at present. And, if any tool is missed in the above list, then please write to us via comment section.