Website Defender - New online website security service

I’m proud to announce a completely new product from the Acunetix team - our new online website security service, WebsiteDefender. WebsiteDefender will protect your website from malware and hackers by scanning for security issues such as outdated or insecure Wordpress plug ins and by monitoring your website for suspicious activity.

WebsiteDefender is one of the first and definitely the most feature rich online website security service. Its built on the pioneering know how we gained whilst developing the market leading Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner software.

WebsiteDefender is not an online version of Acunetix. Whilst Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner is used to scan for security issues in web applications, WebsiteDefender scans and monitors a website, and checks for Malware, Insecure Wordpress plug ins, file changes, administrator credentials changes and so on. In that sense its more like “Website Intrusion Detection“.

WebsiteDefender goes live today as BETA. You can sign up for a free account here, or learn more here.

I look forward to hearing your feedback!

Acunetix web vulnerability scanner v6 available

I blogged about it last week, and since then Acunetix has released the new version of its popular web vulnerability scanner. This is a significant release because of its ground breaking acusense technology, which can accurately identify the code that is producing the security vulnerability. This of course allows you to fix your application faster. It also reduces false positives. Download the Free edition here

Acunetix goes beyond Black Box Scanning with Acusensor technology

Acunetix has just set new standards in web application security technology with its new Acusensor technology. Available as part of the new version 6, this technology identifies more more vulnerabilities, whilst generating less false positives. In addition it indicates exactly where in the code the vulnerability is and also reports debug information. Acunetix is the first and only Web Vulnerability Scanner to implement this innovative technology.

The increased accuracy is achieved by combining black box scanning techniques with feedback from sensors placed inside the source code while it is executed. In contrast, Black box scanning does not know how the application reacts and source code analyzers do not understand how the application will behave while it is being attacked. Acusensor technology combines these techniques to achieve more relevant results than using source code analyzers and black box scanning independently.

AcuSensor Technology works with both PHP and ASP.NET applications. In the case of ASP.NET applications it does not require .NET source code; it can be injected in already compiled .NET applications. Thus there is no need to install a compiler or obtain the web applications’ source code, which is a big advantage when using a third party .NET application. In the case of PHP, the source is already available.

A beta of the new version which includes Acusense technology can be downloaded here. Stay tuned for more information, a white paper is on the way!

Free cross site scripting scanner

OK, another post related to Acunetix. But what we are giving away today is pretty good i think. We have decided to make the cross site scripting functionality free - anyone can download it and check his website for cross site scripting vulnerabilities. This is a major security risk these days so this will really help the security conscious webmaster.

This is pretty significant technology, we spent some 5 years developing it and considerable money and time went into it. I hope it will be appreciated :-) here is the press release

Acunetix today launched a Free Edition of its popular web vulnerability scanner, which allows companies to check for cross site scripting vulnerabilities in their websites at no charge. The Free Edition of Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner (WVS) is available immediately at http://www.acunetix.com/cross-site-scripting/scanner.htm.

Web application vulnerability list

Acunetix has released an RSS feed which lists known web application vulnerabilities and the specific technologies which they target. Hackers today have an ever increasing list of weaknesses in the web application structure at their disposal, which they can exploit to accomplish a wide variety of malicious tasks. In order to educate the public, Acunetix felt the need to document all vulnerabilities discovered by Acunetix WVS since its inception, and will continue to update this list with every new vulnerability found.

Hackers are constantly searching for new flaws to exploit in web applications. Most of the vulnerabilities affect all dynamic web applications whilst others are known to be dependent on specific application technologies. Whatever the case may be, it has become apparent that as web technologies progress, so do the exploits that come with them which hackers are using in order to compromise sensitive databases, thus posing a threat to the daily operation of online businesses.

Since its introduction to the market, developers at Acunetix have been gathering information on all the known web application vulnerabilities detected by the scanner. These vulnerability "signatures" also reinforce the need for the heuristic scanning capabilities of Acunetix WVS, for the detection of those exploits which have not yet been identified and tagged.

The Web Application Vulnerability RSS feed, including over 400 entries is available to subscribe to from: http://www.acunetix.com/vulnerabilities/index.htm