OWASP ZAP (Zed Attack Proxy) is a free and open-source security testing tool used to find vulnerabilities in web applications. It’s developed by the OWASP Foundation and is widely used by both beginners and professionals for penetration testing and security assessment.
Key Features of OWASP ZAP
- Intercepting Proxy
- Acts as a “man-in-the-middle” between the browser and the web application to inspect and modify traffic.
- Active Scanning
- Actively probes your application for vulnerabilities like XSS, SQL Injection, etc.
- Passive Scanning
- Observes application behavior without sending additional requests; useful for safe, non-intrusive scans.
- Spidering (Crawling)
- Automatically discovers all pages and input forms in the web application.
- Fuzzer
- Sends a variety of payloads to inputs to detect injection flaws and buffer overflows.
- Context-based Scanning
- You can configure and restrict scans to specific parts of the site or user roles.
- Authentication Handling
- Supports session-aware scanning with login credentials.
- Scripting Support
- Customize behavior using JavaScript, Python, and other supported scripting languages.
- API Integration
- REST API available for integrating ZAP into CI/CD pipelines.
- Plug-in Architecture
- Extend ZAP with community-developed or custom plug-ins.