05 Sep

Top 10 Best Application Security Tools – Free & Paid (Pros and Cons)

Top 10 Best Application Security Tools – Free & Paid (Pros and Cons). Regardless of the type of application you are running, there is a chance that cyberattackers are trying to infiltrate it and steal valuable data. A slight flaw in your application security system can be the gateway for malicious attacks. This can be a misconfiguration, password issue, or complex code injection.

With our Application security tools list it can enable you to detect security flaws in your application. Purely designed for vulnerability assessment and threat detection. Besides discovering the vulnerability, they also provide actionable information on how to remediate the flaws and prevent future attacks.

With the right tools, you can automate security testing and safeguard your applications. This article discusses the best application security testing tools, both free and paid options, their features, and pros and cons. Read on to discover the best tools to scan your applications for viruses, trojans, embedded malware, vulnerabilities, and online threats!

Shall we start with article Top 10 Best Application Security Tools – Free & Paid (Pros and Cons).

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Free Best Application Security Tools

Free security tools enable users to safeguard applications at zero costs. Some of the top free application security testing tools include:

1. Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP)

ZAP is an open source application testing tool developed by OWASP for web application testing. A free security testing tool managed by experienced pen testers. Also ZAP is an easy to use penetration testing tool suitable for identifying security vulnerabilities in a web application during the development and testing stages.

This tool helps detect application issues such as SQL and XSS injections and forced browsing. Intercepts messages between the browser and application, acting as a “middle proxy.” You can examine the messages for vulnerabilities and remediate them. So use ZAP as it is flexible and extendable. You can easily implement it within your workflow.

Pros

Intuitive graphic user interface (GUI).
Operates cross platform.
Suitable for both experienced and novice developers.
Authentication.
Active and Passive Scan.
Spider tool.
Intercepting Proxy.
Easy to use.
Brute Force Scanner.
Free and open source

Cons

Supported only on Java 8 applications.

2. Bandit

Second on the list of Top 10 Best Application Security Tools is Bandit . Primarily a security testing tool for detecting issues in python applications. Worth adding that it is also free to use tool but only supports Python language. Another use case would be to use this tool to analyse existing projects and find possible flaws and bugs.

To check whether your application is secure, Bandit analyses each file and builds an AST from it. After that, it runs suitable plugins to the AST nodes. Then scans all documents and generates an easy to understand report.

Pros

Generates intuitive reports.
CSV output supported.
Command line interface.
HTML output.
JSON output supported.

Cons

Built for Python only.

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3. SQLMap

Third on the list of Top 10 Best Application Security Tools is SQLMap .Well it is a web application testing tool ideal for scanning website databases for SQL injections. Built with a powerful engine and many features to detect even the most sophisticated vulnerabilities. This tool has a command line that works on different platforms such as Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

You can leverage SQLMap’s SQL injection techniques, i.e., UNION Query, error based, time based, boolean based and stacked queries. In addition supports multiple database management systems such as IBM DB2, PostgreSQL, Oracle and MySQL.

Upon detecting SQL Injection bugs in your application, you can perform a variety of attacks. These include password hashing, dumping database schemas, and brute forcing tables.

Pros

Automatic detection of SQL injections.
Open source and free.
Automatic recognition of password hash formats.
Multiple SQL injection techniques.
Fast engine with reliable results.

Cons

Lack of GUI.
Generates false positives.

4. Nogotofail

Google’s Nogotofail is an application security tool for detecting TLS/SSL vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. Significantly it gives you a flexible way to scan, identify, and fix weak SSL/TLS connections.

You can set Nogotofail as a proxy server, VPN server, or router. Works on Chrome, Windows, Android, IOS, OSX, and any device that connects to the internet. Likewise it allows you to configure settings and receive notifications on Linux and Android.

Pros

Ideal for finding bugs in your networks.
Helpful in mapping out network data flows and understanding network traffic.

Cons

It can impact app performance.

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5. Arachni

Arachni is a web application security tool for scanning and identifying web application issues. Written in Ruby, this tool helps inspect the client side of the web application. Furthermore it has an integrated browser environment built to support complex apps that use HTML5, AJAX, JavaScript, and DOM manipulation.

Further Arachni identifies trends in the web application. These include reliability, general behaviour and false results. Interestingly Arachni adopts changes in the application’s execution path, enabling it to detect attacks and input vectors.

Pros

Scripted auditing.
Simple command line scanner utilities.
Multi scan capabilities.
Intelligent adaptation to each web application.
Generates well structured reports.
Crawl coverage and vulnerability detection.

Cons

Takes a long time to run.
Has limited support.

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Best Paid Application Security Testing Tools

Now with this article
Top 10 Best Application Security Tools – Free & Paid (Pros and Cons) is time to learn that alongside the free application testing tools, you can also utilize premium options. These paid tools come at a cost but have advanced features and numerous benefits. Some of the top premium security tools include:

6. SonarQube

SonarQube is an open source premium application security testing tool. Code review tool that detects vulnerabilities and bugs in your source code. Utilizes static code analysis to inspect code quality.

Generally speaking SonarQube enables development teams to detect flaws during development. The tool supports over 25 programming languages, including C#, Java, Python, and VB.NET. To fully utilize this tool, you need to set conditions that your project must meet. Hence the tool will indicate whether or not your code has passed or missed the threshold.

Pros

Integrates with DevOps platforms such as GitHub, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, and Bitbucket.
Supports multiple programming languages.
Authentication and authorization mechanisms.
Feature to force users to authenticate before they can see any part of a SonarQube instance.
Has a free and open source solution.
Runs static analysis fast.

Cons

Problem generating reports

7. Snyk

Snyk is an cloud based application security testing tool ideal for large scale app development. Enables DevOps teams to detect vulnerabilities faster and remediate them. Further it identifies vulnerabilities in code, infrastructure as code, containers, and open source dependencies.

More to add Snyk supports multiple languages, including Ruby, Java, Python, .Net, and Javascript. As a developer, you can leverage Snyk Code to implement real time code analysis into development. Equally Snyk Code is a static security testing platform that utilizes logical programming rules to identify security issues in real-time.

Pros

Fewer false positives.
Policy Management.
Vulnerability Scanning.
Continuous Integration.
Seamless integration with Jira, Microsoft Virtual Studio, CircleCI, and GitHub.
Real time semantic code analysis.
Developer friendly

Cons

Encounters problems connecting to the cloud.

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8. Intruder

Intruder is a cloud based tool that allows you to monitor cloud applications. Ideal for websites, cloud systems, both private and public servers, and endpoint devices. This tool has a robust, reliable engine to unearth issues such as encryption weaknesses, application bugs, missing patches, and SQL injections.

With Intruder you can monitor vulnerabilities in Azure, GCP, and AWS cloud environments. Checks cloud accounts every hour to ensure your applications are secure.

Pros

Real time checks.
Powerful scanning engine.
Has a notification manager.
Vulnerability Scan.
Issue Tracking.
Simple user interface.
Perimeter Scanning.

Cons

Generates complex reports.

9. ImmuniWeb

Following on the list Top 10 Best Application Security Tools is ImmuniWeb. Premium security testing tool that allows you to find application vulnerabilities and stay compliant ready. Equally it allows you to monitor SANS Top 25 and OWASP Top 10 security vulnerabilities. Robust enough to give you a money back guarantee in case you find false positives.

Evidently this tool helps businesses meet compliance standards such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and PCI DSS, among others. Scans for vulnerabilities and identifies misconfigurations that may violate compliance requirements.

Pros

Helps companies achieve compliance.
Easy to integrate into existing applications.
Money back guarantee on false positives.
Highly customizable.
Allows 24/7/365 monitoring.

Cons

Relatively expensive- starts at $499/month.
Complicated product structure.

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10. Acunetix

Acunetix is an easy to use vulnerability testing tool for web applications, websites, and APIs. Detects all types of vulnerabilities, including SQL injections, Cross Site Scripting, and more. This tool supports macOS, Linux, and Windows platforms.

You can rely on Acunetix’s deep crawl and analysis to scan all web applications. Engine is powerful enough to detect, prioritize, and control threats at a very high rate.

Pros

Comes with free manual testing and network security scanning tools.
Capable of prioritizing and controlling threats.
Scans websites automatically.
Great customer support.
Easy to use.

Cons

Limited integrations.
No free version.

Thank you for reading Top 10 Best Application Security Tools – Free & Paid (Pros and Cons). Let’s conclude.

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