What Is an Application Scanning Tool?

A web application scanner is a type of software program with the ability to crawl an entire website and thoroughly analyze each essential component to assess the overall level of security.

More advanced systems even combine testing with simulated attacks during the scanning process. The average system is vulnerable to thousands of known security risks. An application scanner identifies these risks and compares them against a continuously updated database. While the features vary depending on the product, below are qualities found in almost all web application scanners:

Vulnerability Detection

The main goal of an application scanner is to mitigate the most common threats to web application security. This includes exploits such as cross site scripting that result in data theft and the execution of malicious code as well as techniques like SQL injection that lead to execution of unauthorized commands and tampering. Even the simplest of applications are susceptible to exploit when not properly secured. Application scanning can help you quickly identify vulnerabilities before disaster strikes.

Vulnerability Prioritizing

Time is of the essence when it comes to protecting your system against sophisticated attacks. An application scanner with the ability to identify security holes and prioritize the severity of those vulnerabilities can save precious time for researching and mitigating the problem. Today’s smaller IT environments usually leave one individual to perform the duties of several. Automated assessment scans can benefit even the smallest IT team while reducing the costs and complexities of network security.

Analyze Web Application Infrastructure

Web applications are the most targeted components of a website. However, scanning traditional web applications alone is not enough. The applications of the underlying infrastructure must also be taken into account.  A reliable application scanner will perform critical assessment of vital components such as the operating system, web server, web services and neighboring systems as well.