The Best Security Testing Tools
Here are the top 10 security testing tools I’d like to highlight out of the 21 I cover in this article:
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
Security testing tools help organizations safeguard their IT infrastructure against malicious attacks and software vulnerabilities. Many platforms automatically detect network assets and provide continuous monitoring so security professionals and developers can stay ahead of cyber threats.
A wide range of tools is available with many more features that empower DevSecOps teams to prioritize security throughout software development. Check out our list of the best security testing tools to find the right solution for your business.
Comparison Criteria
These criteria will help you evaluate the top security testing tools on the market.
- User Interface (UI): An easy-to-use interface leads to faster adoption of new security testing tools.
- Usability: Developers are increasingly prioritizing security, meaning your testing tools need to be accessible to stakeholders outside the security team.
- Integrations: A security testing tool that supports your existing SIEM and DevOps tools won’t disrupt productivity.
- Value for $: Ensure the cost of your security tool is aligned with the value it provides to keep your IT infrastructure safe.
Security Testing Tools: Key Features
- Asset detection: Automated asset detection ensures your entire IT environment is monitored for critical vulnerabilities.
- Static application security testing (SAST): SAST tools help developers implement security operations earlier in the software development lifecycle.
- Policy management: A flexible policy management system enables DevSecOps teams to enforce software quality standards during each stage of development.
- Threat prioritization: With automated threat prioritization, teams can focus on remediating issues that leave their systems the most vulnerable.
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Overviews Of The 20 Best Security Testing Tools
Here’s a brief description of each security testing tool to showcase their best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
New Relic
Best QA security testing with real-time performance insights
New Relic is a performance monitoring and management platform that helps you keep an eye on your applications, infrastructure, and customer experience. It's designed to help you identify and fix issues before they become a problem, which is pretty awesome if you ask me.
I was impressed by how New Relic combines performance monitoring with security testing. It's not just about making sure your app is running smoothly; it's also about making sure it's secure. And for that, the platform connects with over 500 tools, which allow you to import telemetry from almost any tool you currently use.
Now, let's talk about some standout features that make New Relic different from other tools in the market. Here I would like to point out Grok, an AI assistant that can read your telemetry and identify outliers for you. Not only that, but you can ask questions to it and it will provide with potential code changes and find a root cause for an issue.
As mentioned earlier, a thing that sets New Relic apart is its integrations. It works seamlessly with a wide range of popular tools and platforms, like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and more. This means you can easily incorporate it into your existing workflow and get the most out of your security testing efforts. If, however, you cannot find a pre-built integration with a tool you currently use, you can use its API to custom-build it.
Overall, I think New Relic is a fantastic choice for anyone looking for a security testing tool that's both powerful and easy to use.
Snyk
Developer-friendly security platform with real-time semantic code analysis
Snyk is a developer-first security platform that automatically identifies vulnerabilities in code, open-source dependencies, containers, and infrastructure as code. Built on an industry-leading security intelligence database, Snky empowers its users to detect more vulnerabilities faster. The platform also supports various programming languages, including JavaScript, Java (Grable, Maven), .Net, Python, and Ruby.
Developers can implement real-time semantic code analysis into development with Snyk’s static application security testing platform, Snyk Code. Powered by machine learning, Snyk Code utilizes logic programming rules to identify security issues as code is written. The system is trained on Snyk’s Vulnerability Database, resulting in fewer false positives.
Snyk integrates with leading DevOps tools, including Microsoft Visual Studio, GitHub, CircleCI, and Jira.
A free forever plan with limited testing is available for individual developers. Subscriptions for teams start at $98/developer/month.
Sonatype
Supply chain management solution with flexible policy engine
Sonatype offers a suite of products that enable secure software supply chain management. Products include firewalls, application lifecycle management, auditing solutions, repository management, and security tools. Nexus Lifecycle is one of Sonatype’s security tools that helps developers protect their open-source dependencies. The tool automatically identifies and remediates open-source vulnerabilities, allowing enterprise developers to scale open source monitoring across their software supply chain.
Nexus Lifecycle provides a flexible policy engine that gives application security teams complete control of their software. AppSec teams can create custom policies based on app type and organization. Users can also configure policies to report risks to stakeholders or fail software builds based on the severity of policy violations.
Sonatype’s products integrate with popular development tools, including Docker, OpenShift, and Azure DevOps.
Pricing is based on the number of developers on your team, with Nexus Lifecycle starting at $135/month for 25 developers.
Vega
Java-based security scanner and testing tool for web applications
Vega is a Java based security testing tool that helps you identify vulnerabilities in your applications by finding and validating SQL injection, cross-site scripting and inadvertently disclosed sensitive information. The tool runs on Linux, Mac and Windows, and provides an automated scanner for quick tests and intercepting proxy. Vega is GUI based and is extensible, allowing you to create new attack modules using the API exposed by the app. Vega offers features whereby it can automatically log into sites when supplied with user credentials, and also provides a crawler that powers its automated scanner. The tool also probes for TLS/SSL security settings, allowing you to identify opportunities for improving the security of your TLS servers. Lastly, you can configure Vega’s proxy to run attack modules while you are browsing the target site through it. Vega is fully open source and free to use.
SonarQube
Continuous code inspection app great for enforcing quality standards
SonarQube continuously inspects code quality utilizing static code analysis. The platform generates detailed reports on bugs, code smells, vulnerabilities, and code duplications, enabling software teams to detect security issues early in development. The program supports over 25 programming languages, including Python, Java, C#, and VB.NET.
Developers can ensure their code is ready for release with SonarQube’s Quality Gates, which enforce your organization’s quality policy. Developers can define a set of conditions a project must meet, and SonarQube will indicate whether your code has passed or failed. SonarQube recommends utilizing their default “Sonar way” Quality Gate, which focuses on keeping new code clean and spending less effort remediating old code.
SonarQube integrates with Jenkins, Azure DevOps, BitBucket, GitHub, and many other DevOps platforms.
Pricing for SonarQube’s Developer plan starts at $150/year based on usage. The Enterprise edition starts at $20,000/year. A free, open-source solution is also available.
BeEF (Browser Exploitation Framework)
Pen testing software for web browsers
BeEF is a security testing tool that focuses on web browser testing. The tool provides extensive cyber security by offering the ability to assess the security posture of your desired environments by using client-side attack vectors. BeEF also uses GitHub to track issues and host its repositories. BeEF aims to look past the hardened network perimeter and client system, allowing you to examine the exploitability within your web browser. The tool hooks one or more browsers, and uses them as front lines for launching further attacks against your systems from within your browser context. BeEF is easy to set up and therefore easy to implement within your workflows. BeEF is fully open source and free to use.
SQLMap
Penetration testing software for detecting SQL injection vulnerabilities
SQLMap is a python-based penetration testing tool that automates the detection and exploitation of SQL injection flaws and database takeovers. Penetration testers can utilize five SQL injection techniques: boolean-based blind, time-based blind, error-based, UNION query, and stacked queries. The system supports MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, IBM DB2, and various other database management systems.
Once SQLMap detects SQL injection bugs in an application, testers can perform extensive database fingerprinting and execute various attacks. Supported attacks include brute-forcing table and column names, dumping database schemas, and enumerating users, privileges, and password hashes.
Penetration testers can integrate SQLMap with Burp Suite, an application testing tool, by utilizing PortSwigger’s SQLiPy extension.
SQLMap is free and open source.
ImmuniWeb
Cloud and application security tool that simplifies compliance testing
The ImmuniWeb AI Platform offers a variety of SaaS products for asset discovery, penetration testing, and continuous web and mobile application monitoring. Security teams can monitor OWASP Top 10 and SANS Top 25 security vulnerabilities. Immuniweb offers a money-back guarantee if you find any false positives in your vulnerability reports.
ImmuniWeb On-Demand is a great tool to help businesses meet regulatory and compliance requirements in a simple, cost-effective way. It works by regularly performing a penetration test on systems that store or process personal data and identifying privacy misconfigurations that may violate compliance requirements. The platform covers a range of regulations, including HIPPA, California CCPA, CPRA, PCI DSS, Hong Kong PDPO, and EU and UK GDPR.
Users can easily integrate ImmuniWeb products with their existing development, web application firewall, and SIEM tools, including Bugzilla, Azure DevOps, Qualys WAF, and Splunk.
Pricing starts at $499/month. ImmuniWeb community edition offers a variety of free security tests for cloud systems, dark web exposure, and mobile and web applications.
Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP)
Extensible penetration testing tool with customizable heads up display
OWASP ZAP is a free, open-source penetration testing tool for web applications. The system supports automated and manual penetration testing. ZAP’s ease of use makes the tool accessible to users of all skill levels, from developers to security experts. Testers can utilize ZAP as a stand-alone application or daemon process. Versions of Zap are available for major operating systems and Docker.
Many web application security testing tools aren’t user-friendly; however, ZAP simplifies penetration testing with its intuitive heads up display (HUD). The HUD is a user interface overlaid on a target application, enabling you to access ZAP functionality from any modern browser. This feature is handy for developers, who can efficiently conduct testing on custom build scripts by connecting them to the HUD.
The ZAP Marketplace contains an extensive library of add-ons to extend the tool’s functionality. Add-ons are available for crawling JavaScript-heavy websites and endpoint detection.
Invicti
DAST + IAST scanner that provides precise threat detection
Invicti is an enterprise black-box security scanner for identifying vulnerabilities in web applications, websites, and web services. The platform combines dynamic (DAST) and true interactive (IAST) scanning to provide extensive vulnerability coverage and precise threat detection. After vulnerabilities are found, your team can utilize Invicti’s integrations with issue tracking systems to assign them for remediation.
Invicti produces detailed scan reports that enable developers to fix vulnerabilities quickly. Scan reports include various details about each security vulnerability, including its type, variant, classification (i.e., OWASP), location, and potential impact. Reports also include immediate actions developers can take to fix vulnerabilities.
The platform offers over 50 integrations, with support available for GitHub, Jenkins, and Jira.
Pricing is available upon request.
Need expert help selecting the right Testing Software?
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The Best Security Testing Tools Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | New Relic Best QA security testing with real-time performance insights | Free version available | From $49/user/month | Visit Website |
2 | Snyk Developer-friendly security platform with real-time semantic code analysis | Not available | $98/developer/month | Visit Website |
3 | Sonatype Supply chain management solution with flexible policy engine | Not available | starting at $135/month for 25 developers. | Visit Website |
4 | Vega Java-based security scanner and testing tool for web applications | Free To Use | Visit Website | |
5 | SonarQube Continuous code inspection app great for enforcing quality standards | Not available | Starts at $20,000/year | Visit Website |
6 | BeEF (Browser Exploitation Framework) Pen testing software for web browsers | Free To Use | Visit Website | |
7 | SQLMap Penetration testing software for detecting SQL injection vulnerabilities | Not available | Visit Website | |
8 | ImmuniWeb Cloud and application security tool that simplifies compliance testing | Not available | $499/month | Visit Website |
9 | Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) Extensible penetration testing tool with customizable heads up display | Not available | Free to use | Visit Website |
10 | Invicti DAST + IAST scanner that provides precise threat detection | Not available | Available upon request | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few more security testing tools that didn’t make the top list.
- Intruder
Cloud-based vulnerability scanner with automatic IP and DNS tracking tool
- Google Nogotofail
Network security testing tool for detecting known TLS/SSL vulnerabilities
- Wapiti
Open-source black-box security scanner
- Imperva
Offers comprehensive suite of tools for application, network, data, and cloud-native security
- Tenable
Risk-based vulnerability management solution with threat prediction capability
- Rapid7
All-in-one solution for automated application security, detection, and response
- Burp Suite
Web security platform with automated and manual pen testing tools
- Probely
Developer-friendly web application and API vulnerability scanner
- Cyberpion
Attack surface management solution with multi-factor vulnerability assessment engine
- Wfuzz
Provides framework to automate security scanning and penetration testing for Python-based web applications
What do you think about this list?
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