A Study on Different Scanners and Their Limitations for Web Application Vulnerabilities

Web applications have become commodiously popular in the last two decades and have touched every walk of our daily lives. At the same time they have accrued large volumes of sensitive data. This has allured the attackers, who ever since been looking out for the vulnerabilities in the applications constantly. In this paper, the most common web attacks are deliberated. The artifice of how these attacks are effectuated is discussed. Some of the most common industries targeted by the attackers are Finance, Government, Healthcare and IT. The recent trends in the web attacks and their consequences on the organizations are analyzed. The common scanners or automated tools to scan for vulnerabilities and their limitations are deciphered.