Imagine building and deploying a website with unique features after evaluating the other websites present in the market. This unique website will bring you good revenue and a large number of customers. Everything is excellent, but the one thing that you forget to do is to secure it, and somehow, after a few days, a cybercriminal hacks your website and leaks all your customer data on the internet.
Bang!! You are now fighting a legal battle for not taking security measures for the protection of your website and customer data.
Penetration testing, aka pen-testing, is a simulation of an environment that a hacker would have used to exploit the security vulnerabilities of your website or web application. It tries to breach both the frontend and the backend of your website to discover the potential risks that are vulnerable to attacks.
Penetration testing tools are some software applications that are used to check security threats. Each of these tools has its own pros and cons. The list given below helps you compare some of the best website penetration testing tools you can use for your website:
1. Netsparker
Netsparker Security Scanner is a top-rated and automatic web application that is used for website penetration testing and is recognized as the most accurate one. This software is highly efficient and can easily recognize malicious activities like cross-site scripting to SQL injections.
Netsparker is a potent tool that can scan 500 and 1000 websites or web applications at a time. It provides the pen tester with an option to customize the security scan with authentication, URL rewrite rules, and attack options. It takes advantage of the security gaps in a read-only way, and proof of exploitation is given.
Netsparker enables to add several team members to work together in collaboration and easily share the findings. It assures accurate detection due to proof-based results. It is available as software and an online service.
2. Metasploit
Metasploit is said to be the most used testing automation framework worldwide. It helps the professional management and verifies security assessments, enhances awareness and tools, and empowers the protectors to stay ahead of the hackers.
It is a crucial tool for checking the security of a website and exploring the security loopholes present to set up and define an efficient system for the website’s safety. It is open-source software that allows the network administrator to get into the system and recognize the most fatal weaknesses. Beginner attackers use this tool to develop their knowledge and skills.
Metasploit is an easy-to-use GUI and command-line-based interface. It collects testing data for approximately 1500 exploits or more. One can also use it to explore older vulnerabilities within the infrastructure of the website. It is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS operating systems and can test servers, websites, and networks.
3. Acunetix
Acunetix is an automated testing tool that cybersecurity experts use to accomplish website or application pen-testing. It is an efficient and reliable tool that has the capability to audit complex management reports and problems with compliance. This software can handle a vast range of network vulnerabilities or threats.
Acunetix is a web vulnerability scanner that can detect more than 4500 websites or web application threats, including XSS and variants of SQL injections. It does all the jobs of a manual pen tester automatically in minimum time and with highly reliable results with no false positives.
This tool has the ability to work locally or via a cloud solution and can crawl thousands of web pages without any time delay.
4. Burp Suite
Burp Suite is an essential and highly cost-efficient tool used for website penetration testing in the industry. It not only includes vulnerability scans but full proxy capturing and command injection services as well. It is ideal for pen testing web-based applications or websites.
It provides tools to map the tack surface and analyze the requests between the browser and the backend server. This framework uses website pen testing on the Java platform and is used by many security experts. It has the power to crawl websites and web apps automatically and is available for Windows, OS X, and Linux.
5. W3af
W3af is a web application audit and attack framework that mainly exposes the vulnerabilities present on a website. It comes with three kinds of plugins for website pen-testing. These plugins are for attack, audit, and discovery. It then passes these to the audit tool to monitor and check the security gaps present on the website or web application.
It is a straightforward tool for amateurs and developers to complete automated HTTP request generation and raw HTTP requests. It has a command-line interface and is available for free to download for everyone.
6. Nessus
Nessus is one of the oldest website penetration-testing tools that are being used in the industry for the last twenty years by around 27,000 companies throughout the world. It is a very powerful penetration testing tool with more than 45,000 CEs and 100,000 plugins. It is an ideal solution to scan and explore the security gaps and loopholes present on your business websites, IP addresses, and complete confidential data search.
It is very user-friendly and the easy-to-use tool will give you an overview of all the network vulnerabilities present. It is perfect for locating and recognizing the security gaps and malware present on your website having only .32 defects per every one million scans. It also enables you to create customized Pentesting sample reports of the scan performed on platforms like websites, mobiles, and the cloud.
Conclusion
There are a plethora of website penetration testing tools available on the internet to make the process easier and efficient. It depends on the business’s requirement or the website that requires pen-testing and the efficiency of the software. Various other factors like platform, cost, and time delay, and so on are also looked upon while selecting the best tool to pen-test your website. It is a good practice to use these tools frequently or after regular intervals to keep the security of your website updated. If you face difficulties, it is always good to consult professional help to monitor and pen-test your website for a complete security plan.