ZAP VS dirsearch

I use ZAP [1] with the OAST add-on for this at the moment. I admit the UX isn't perfect, but it serves my purpose.

If I also want control over the responses (e.g. return a 401 status code for every fifth request), I have a custom extender script [2] for that.

[1]: https://www.zaproxy.org/

Implement tools like Burp Suite or OWASP ZAP for in-depth security scanning of your APIs.

OWASP ZAP

The use of capital punctuation implies a warning? an alert? Would this same response be warranted for Burp which is also a commercial, closed source product?

If this is an issue for some, then ZAP being open source[1] maybe favourable.

That said, Burp is the defacto tool for a reason - it's best in class. Every pentester I know, including myself, has a paid subscription. The fact that it's closed source hasn't been an issue.

[1] https://github.com/zaproxy/zaproxy

Briefly reviewed your product. Seems like OWASP ZAP is your competition: https://www.zaproxy.org/

It runs entirely in the browser so it uses the browser "native" frameworks.

Dynamic analysis involves testing your application while it's running. Tools like OWASP ZAP and Burp Suite can help identify vulnerabilities like SQL injection or Cross-Site Scripting by sending malicious requests to your application and analyzing the responses.

> Lying is not an embellishment or puffery, it's a lie. Engaging a company for a 3 day pen test that's totally insufficient, that would be an embellishment.

I agree, but if the RFP question was phrased "have you done penetration testing?" then that leaves a lot of room for embellishment. If the question is "do you have SOC2 certification?" and you answer "yes" untruthfully, then that is a lie. If they ask for the SOC2 or pentest report and you give them a falsified document, that's where you're (probably) committing fraud.

> One of the most important part of pen tests is that they are external.

AWS/Google/etc have internal security teams doing their pen tests, so no, this isn't true.

> Just doing your job as an engineer and looking for bugs is not a pen test.

What about an engineer spending an afternoon running ZAP[0]?

> It's like saying, "what is an audit really? We have accountants and they check our books for anomalies."

Yeah, which is why you don't just ask a company "do you keep track of your finances?" if you're investing in them, you request external auditors.

[0] https://www.zaproxy.org/

In addition to manual security reviews, you can also implement DevSecOps practices to automate security checks. For example, you can set up a CI/CD pipeline to run static code analysis tools like CodeQL and automatically run penetration tests using tools like OWASP ZAP.

OWASP ZAP (open source)

I would start by installing Burp Suite or OWASP Zap and seeing what the actual messages look like

I am new to Python. With the help of several users (thanks u/Diapolo10 and u/shiftybyte)I've been able to install Python and the dirsearch package. Dirsearch (https://github.com/maurosoria/dirsearch) allows for checking website paths with a wordlist. For example, I have a wordlist file with words like "dog", "cat", "bird", etc and I want to check the validity of those words as extensions on a website. Something like "example.com/bird", "example.com/cat", etc. I have a test wordlist in the same directory as dirsearch, but I am confused on how to proceed with the commands. I want to have it check my wordlist as extensions on the example.com website and then save output on if the webpath is valid or not. Just need a little bit of help.

DirSearch

Learn more about dirsearch here: https://github.com/maurosoria/dirsearch

Empowered with a list of all the exposed URLs in your organization, you can then set up a process to scan these using a number of web-focused Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) tools and scanners such as Zed Attack Proxy, dirsearch (Web path scanner), Aquatone, and Nikto2. The OWASP® Foundation maintains a full list of scanning tools that could be used.

Scan our domains and infrastructure to reveal if we have exposed.git repositories and other critical infrastructure. You can scan your domains and subdomains with many tools such as Amass or dirsearch to name a couple.

dirsearch: