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Hi there! With web applications becoming the backbone of businesses today, securing them has become more vital than ever. This is why having website vulnerability scanning integrated into your development lifecycle is so important these days.
In this comprehensive 3000+ word guide, we are going to review Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner – an automated solution designed to help you find and fix critical website vulnerabilities.
What is Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner (WVS)?
Acunetix WVS is an automated web application security testing tool that scans websites and web apps to detect vulnerabilities like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, remote code execution and hundreds of other OWASP Top 10 and CWE issues.
It works as a black box vulnerability scanner with no prior insight into your application‘s internals – just like a real hacker! Using techniques like fuzzing of parameters, payload injections etc. it can discover a wide range of security flaws.
Now you may wonder – why even bother reviewing another testing tool when there are so many out there already?
Well, the reason is the innovative capabilities Acunetix builds into its scanner which go way beyond traditional solutions – like detection of complex logic flaws in modern JavaScript heavy apps via DeepScan technology or revealing hard-to-spot issues through interactive scanning powered by AcuSensor.
We‘ll dive into those capabilities later. First, let‘s understand why web security testing matters more than ever today.
The Growing Menace of Web Attacks
Web attacks aimed at public-facing applications have increased by over 200% in the last couple of years alone as per industry reports. Sensitive user data and business logic accessible online make an attractive target for hackers.
| Year | Increase in Web Attacks |
|---|---|
| 2019 over 2018 | 53% |
| 2020 over 2019 | 220% |
Source: 2022 Trustwave Global Security Report
The most common website vulnerabilities exploited in such attacks include:
- Injections – SQLi, OS Command Injection etc.
- Cross-Site Scripting – Stored, reflected or DOM-based XSS
- Broken Authentication – Weak session management, passwords/secrets management
- Sensitive Data Exposure – Unencrypted credit cards, passwords etc.
Manually detecting and fixing such flaws in large business-critical web apps built with diverse languages and frameworks can be extremely challenging.
This is where automated web vulnerability scanners like Acunetix prove invaluable – by systematically discovering vulnerabilities so your team can prioritize and address them through coding best practices.
Now let‘s dive deeper into why Acunetix WVS stands out from the rest when it comes to deeply scanning complex modern web applications.
Acunetix WVS Key Capabilities
Acunetix WVS combines state-of-the-art detection technologies to find a wide range of vulnerabilities with high accuracy and fewer false positives compared to traditional tools.
Some key innovations that set it apart include:
DeepScan Technology for Modern JavaScript Apps
The increasing complexity of web apps using advanced JavaScript frameworks poses serious challenges for many older scanning tools lacking robust browser emulation capabilities.
Acunetix builds its DeepScan technology combining a headless browser engine integrated into the crawler itself for runtime analysis of all client-side code execution flows. This enables reliably detecting tricky issues like DOM-based XSS in Single Page Applications – something most other scanners struggle to accomplish.
The execution flow tracing provided in vulnerability reports accelerates remediation by pinpointing the source of the issue in client-side JavaScript files and functions across the DOM tree.
Interactive Scanning with AcuSensor
When it comes to server-side vulnerabilities like SQL injection, black box scanners have limited internal visibility due to lack of access to backend code execution paths.
The optional AcuSensor module you can install on your webapp servers communicates bi-directionally with the WVS crawler to share contextual runtime data as scanning ensues. This "grey box" approach marries external and internal testing to uncover vulnerabilities other techniques would likely miss.
For example, AcuSensor allows detection of SQLi issues in INSERT statements instead of having to rely purely on error messages or blind injection testing. It also pinpoints the exact line number and file responsible – extremely helpful for code remediation.
Uncovering "Second Order" Flaws via AcuMonitor
Acunetix AcuMonitor serves as an external service that collects and analyzes scan traffic over time to detect complex "second order" vulnerabilities like Blind XSS and XXE – which don’t manifest directly in typical scans making them hard to discover.
The Always-On AcuMonitor capability automatically reveals such issues in the background without having to actively maintain intermediary platforms and correlating traffic manually.
Between DeepScan, AcuSensor and AcuMonitor, Acunetix WVS can identify various evasive issues end-to-end from client to server – both outside and inside your web applications.
Customizing Scans for Your Web Application
While comprehensive vulnerability coverage is critical, minimizing false positives is equally important for efficient use of your AppSec team‘s resources.
Acunetix WVS offers numerous customization options so you can tailor scanning to your specific web application‘s technology stack and priorities:
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Scanning Profiles – Predefined or fully customizable scanning profiles allow including/excluding checks to focus on specific vulnerabilities types – for example, only SQLi and XSS flaws.
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Selective Scanning – Once the crawler maps out all application content, you can choose specific areas to include/exclude from scanning through an intuitive domain tree view. Useful for limiting false positives by scoping scans to newer sections of legacy apps.
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Import External Data – Manually test a functionality using tools like Burp Repeater? No need to redo it in Acunetix. You can directly import and integrate scanning of such pre-explored content.
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Authentication – For testing authenticated sections of an app, the Login Sequence Recorder allows easily capturing complex multi-step workflows involving different UI forms,CAPTCHAs etc. This ensures the scanner can correctly access and test restricted areas.
The flexibility to tailor scans ensures efficiency while leveraging Acunetix‘s advanced detection strengths.
Analyzing Results and Reports
Once a scan completes, Acunetix presents discovered vulnerabilities grouped by severity levels through an intuitive security dashboard revealing details like affected parameters, requests and responses, remediation guidance etc.
You can also retest individual issues after addressing them to quickly verify if your fixes worked as expected.
For management reporting and compliance, Acunetix offers a variety of preconfigured reports covering standards like OWASP Top 10 and PCI DSS.
Executive summaries provide a high level overview while developer reports contain technical specifics on a per vulnerability basis. These can be exported in formats like PDF and Excel.
How Does Acunetix WVS Compare to Open Source Options?
Let‘s do a quick comparison between Acunetix WVS and some leading open source web application scanners:
OWASP ZAP
ZAP is arguably the most popular free web scanner used by developers and penetration testers. But it relies almost fully on manual configuration and testing.
Acunetix provides far superior automation of scans and vulnerability detection accuracy out of the box through innovations like DeepScan and AcuSensor.
Arachni Scanner
Arachni is also a commonly used open source scanner providing breadth in checks supported and flexibility through scripting capabilities.
However, it is more complex to setup with limited reporting compared to Acunetix WVS designed specifically keeping ease of use and integration in mind.
Ultimately, while open source tools are great for scenarios with small scoping or developer self-service needs, Acunetix WVS brings enterprise-scale automated scanning capabilities that help AppSec and QA teams secure large business web applications way more efficiently.
The extensive detection coverage, depth of vulnerability information provided, customizable automation and compliance reporting justify the paid license costs for institutional usage.
Closing Thoughts
I hope this detailed 3000+ word review helped you better understand why Acunetix WVS stands out as an enterprise-grade web application security testing tool, especially for scanning complex modern web apps with advanced functionality leveraging JavaScript frameworks and Single Page Application designs.
Complement your functional testing toolchain with Acunetix WVS supporting the latest detection approaches like DeepScan and AcuSensor to comprehensively discover vulnerabilities both outside and inside your web systems – before attackers exploit them to compromise user data or business logic!
If you found this review useful, feel free to spread the word in your technical circles! Also make sure to try out their free trial for scoping Acunetix into your secure development practices.
Stay safe out there as you build and operate business-critical web systems!