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How to Find a Good Website Security Scanner

Hackers have continued infiltrating the internet and they are always trying to hack websites and leak
important data that may harm any organization’s reputation. Website security scanners play a huge
role in testing and identifying any security vulnerabilities your site may be exposed to.

Security scanners do not access the source code; they only perform functional testing and try to
determine the vulnerabilities. It is important to take a few factors into consideration before making
any purchasing decision. Here are some tips that will help you choose the right website security
scanner that fits your needs.

Requirements

As a website owner, you are likely to have a list of requirements in mind. The requirements may
include automation of tasks, lowering your web application security costs and increasing your
coverage. Automated website security scanners are highly recommended as they help to save time
as well as identify all technical web vulnerabilities.

Ease of use

A good website security scanner should be easy to use as the subject of web vulnerability scanning
is already broad and difficult. You should spend most of your time fixing the threats detected instead
of figuring out how the scanner operates.

Security tests it can carry out

Most website security scanners are able to identify common web vulnerabilities present. However,
the scanner you choose should also be able to identify vulnerabilities that are less widespread.

Variations of the vulnerabilities

In addition to being able to identify a variety of vulnerabilities, a web vulnerability scanner should
also check and report on the variations of the vulnerabilities found. An example would be the Cross
Site Scripting, where a web developer may fix the simple version of the vulnerability, but might fail
to tackle the vulnerability when the Cross Site Scripting payload is encoded.

Ability to cover content management systems

A lot of organizations use content management systems like Joomla, WordPress and Drupal to
create content on the site regularly. All this content management systems are prone to their own set
of vulnerabilities. The website security scanner that you use should be able to check these for
configuration errors and possible vulnerabilities in the systems.

54 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – September 2015 Edition
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