| OWASP Top 10 (2021) | What a scanner looks for | |---------------------|--------------------------| | A01: Broken Access Control | IDOR, missing function-level auth | | A03: Injection | SQL, NoSQL, OS command injection | | A05: Security Misconfiguration | Default creds, verbose errors, missing headers | | A06: Vulnerable Components | Outdated libraries (via CVE matching) | | A08: Software & Data Integrity Failures | Unsigned updates, insecure deserialization |
| If you want… | Use… | |--------------|-------| | Free, OWASP-led, open source | | | Commercial + OWASP reporting | Invicti, Acunetix, Checkmarx, Burp Suite Pro | | SCA for OWASP A06 | OWASP Dependency-Check | | API-first scanning | ZAP + Postman collection | owasp vulnerability scanner
Additionally, scanners face technical hurdles with modern Single Page Applications (SPAs) and APIs. Because SPAs rely heavily on client-side JavaScript to generate content, traditional crawlers may fail to discover all available endpoints or "states" of the application, leaving significant portions of the app untested. | OWASP Top 10 (2021) | What a
“ZAP is a set-it-and-forget-it scanner.” Fact: ZAP requires tuning — context, authentication, and anti-CSRF tokens. and anti-CSRF tokens.