With the exponential growth of the Internet, there is also a huge rise in hacking activities. Hackers worldwide are increasingly using highly sophisticated tools and programs to breach even secured networks. It is important that you must remove vulnerabilities in your website and web application to make them more secure.

If you want to secure your website or web application, then you must know the vulnerabilities, which you can then plug into to make your website and applications secure. To find out the vulnerabilities in your web app, you will need the help of powerful security testing tools. There are several web app testing tools that are available in the market with their own pros and cons.

Here, you will find a list of 7 such powerful testing tools that web app developers worldwide utilize to enhance web application security.

So, let's get started.

7 Powerful Web App Testing Tools

Here is a list of some highly popular security testing tools through which you can find the vulnerable points of your web application and website.

1) Grabber

This powerful web application scanner can identify any vulnerability in your web application. After scanning your application, it will tell you the nature and place of the vulnerability in your app.

This portable testing tool is very simple to use and is excellent for small web applications because of its in-depth scanning technique it takes a long time to test large web applications.

Some of the key features of Grabber include the following.

- It is simple and portable.
- Generate a stats analysis file.
- It supports JS code analysis files.

Some of the vulnerabilities that this testing tool can find out include the following:

- SQL injection.
- Cross-site scripting.
- File inclusion.
- Ajax testing.
- Backup file check.
- JS source code analyser.

2) Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP)

This open-source, multiplatform web application security tool is used by the developers to identify security vulnerabilities in the web app development and testing phase.

It has a highly intuitive GUI that makes this tool very easy to use even by those who are trying out this tool for the first time.

For experts, this tool provides support to command-line access. Furthermore, this powerful tool can be used to check a proxy so that you can manually test a web page.

A few important features of this powerful security testing tool includes the following:

- Easy to use.
- Automatic scanning.
- Rest-based API.
- Support for authentication.

Some of the vulnerabilities ZAP can detect include the following:

- Cookie, not HTTP only flag.
- Application errant disclosure.
- XSS injection.
- Private IP Disclosure.
- SQL injection.
- Session ID in URL rewrite.

3) Wfuzz

This testing tool is developed in Python and is mainly used for brute-forcing web applications. It has no GUI interface and you can use it only by command line.

This open-source included testing tool provides numerous features that include authentication support, multithreading, cookies fuzzing, support for proxy and SOCK, multi-injection points, and many more.

Important features of Wfuzz includes the following:

- Multithreading.
- Authentication support.
- Support for proxy and SOCK.
- Multiple injection points.

Some of the vulnerabilities that this amazing testing tool can identify include the following:

- XSS injection.
- SQL injection.
- LDAP injection.

4) Vega

This is a highly capable open-source web application vulnerability scanner and testing tool. This free tool allows you to undertake intensive security testing of a web application and it is available for Windows, Linux, and OS X platforms.

It provides you with a GUI-based environment and it is written in Java. You can use Vega proxy, Vega scanner, and Vega proxy scanner in addition to scanning with credentials.

A few important features of Vega includes:

- Support multiple platforms.
- It is open source and completely free.

You can use this free testing tool the find out various vulnerabilities in web applications such as:

- Cross-site scripting.
- Header injection.
- SQL injection.
- File inclusion.
- Shell injection.
- Header injection.

5) Wapiti

This capable web app vulnerability scanner lets you audit the security of your web applications. It uses black-box testing through scanning the web pages of your web app by injecting data.

It injects a payload and then scans the script to find its vulnerability. It supports both POST HTTP and GET attacks and spots any vulnerability in your web apps. To use this tool, you will need expert-level knowledge and you have to learn a lot of commands.

Some of the important features of this popular testing app include the following:

- It supports POST HTTP and GET methods for attacks.
- It allows authentications through multiple methods.

Some of the vulnerabilities this testing tool can detect include the following:

- File inclusion.
- File disclosure.
- Cross-site scripting (XSS).
- SEL injection and XPath injection.
- Command execution detection.
- Weak .htaccess configuration.
- CRLF injection.
- Backup file disclosure and many more.

6) W3af

This is another well-known web application attack and audit tool which is created using Python.

This tool is so capable that with its help you can identify 200+ web application vulnerabilities in your web app.

It has a simple graphical and console interface which allows you to use it without much problem. All you have to do is select the option you want and then start scanning.

If a certain website needs authentication, then this tool provides you with authentication modules that help to scan even the session-protected pages.

A few important features of this testing tool includes the following:

- It is easy to get started with.
- Output can be logged into a console.
- Authentication support.

7) SQLMap

It is a free web application testing tool that allows you to automatically detect vulnerability in a website database by utilizing SQL injection. This highly capable security testing tool allows you six different types of SQL injection techniques that include the following:

- Error based.
- Boolean-based blind.
- Stacked queries.
- Out of band.
- UNION query.
- Time-based blind.

A few highlights for this security testing tool include the following:

- It has a powerful detection engine.
- Automates the process of detecting SQL injection vulnerabilities.
- It supports a large number of databases.

Conclusion

These are some of the widely used web application security testing tools. As a developer, you must keep yourself updated about the various ways through which hackers can breach the security of your web app.

This will help you to thwart the intentions of the hackers and keep your network, apps, and website safe. The tools listed here allow you to find and fix the vulnerabilities in your web app through which hackers can penetrate the system and steal important data from you.

The best way to secure your web application is through continuous vigilance and staying updated with the latest hacking techniques.