VAPT Tools: What Are They and How Can You Use Them?

Proactive security is the need of the hour for small and midsize businesses and VAPT is one of the primary ways in which you can achieve it. VAPT is the process of testing your systems for security errors or gaps or vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities can be detected by malicious actors with the help of probing bots, and they can exploit certain vulnerabilities to gain access to your data, pose a denial of service, steal information, or ask for ransom. You can use VAPT to find these vulnerabilities before hackers and save your business. Yes, you will need some VAPT tools.

What does VAPT mean?

Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) is a process of assessing the security of a system or application by identifying all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities present in it. Vulnerability assessment can be done manually or with the help of automated tools. Penetration testing, on the other hand, is an authorized attempt to exploit vulnerabilities to assess the security of a system.

VAPT audit is important because it helps you find the loopholes in your system before the hackers do. It also helps you understand how vulnerable your system is to an attack and what steps you need to take to improve its security.

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What is the relationship between vulnerability assessment and penetration testing?

Vulnerability assessment and penetration testing are two different procedures tied to the same goal – understanding the security posture of the target system.

In fact, both vulnerability assessment and penetration testing share some steps. Vulnerability scanning, for instance, is a part of both VA and PT. An automated scanner is used to probe into the system and detect common vulnerabilities.

While in the case of vulnerability assessment the vulnerabilities found during the scan are categorized and scored based on their general characteristics, a penetration test exploits the vulnerabilities to find contextual data about them – the exact threat posed by the vulnerability to that particular system, how easy it would have been to exploit the vulnerability, what sort of access would the attacker get, would the attacker be able to escalate the access, if yes, then how easily?

Why should a business look for VAPT tools?

You can take care of your own security by employing a security team, training them to use various tools and techniques to test the security of your company, and then making it a recurrent process. But it is usually just easier to use certain VAPT tools to minimize the efforts required on your part and maximize the results.

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The best VAPT tools can fit right inside your CI/CD pipeline, and it is quite easy to automate regular scans. Basically, you install a VAPT tool, in order not to lose sleep over security.

5 best VAPT tools in India you should look into

Astra Pentest:

This security testing tool can be used for both web and mobile application VAPT. It has a wide range of features that makes it one of the most popular VAPT tools available.

The tool integrates with your CI/CD and can be used for recurrent vulnerability assessments. It also comes with manual pentest capabilities, which means you can get a complete, error-free picture of your security posture.

Metasploit:

This tool is used by penetration testers to exploit vulnerabilities present in systems. It can be used to conduct VAPT for web applications, network servers, and client workstations.

The Metasploit framework can be used to launch attacks, create payloads, and conduct post-exploitation activities such as privilege escalation.

Burp Suite:

This is a VAPT tool that is used specifically for web application VAPT. It comes with a number of features such as an intercepting proxy, spidering, etc. that make it very versatile and powerful.

The community edition of Burp Suite is free to use, making it one of the most popular VAPT tools available today.

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Nmap:

Nmap or Network Mapper is a VAPT tool that is used to scan networks for vulnerabilities. It can be used to assess the security of both small and large networks.

Nmap comes with a number of features such as port scanning, OS detection, etc. that make it very useful for VAPT.

NetSkoper:

NetSkoper is a VAPT tool that is specifically designed for network VAPT. It can be used to scan networks for vulnerabilities and conduct penetration tests.

The tool comes with a number of features such as port scanning, vulnerability analysis, etc. that make it very powerful and versatile.

Acunetix:

Acunetix is a VAPT tool that is specifically designed for web application VAPT. It comes with a number of features such as web application scanning, SQL injection detection, etc. that make it very powerful and useful for VAPT.

Conclusion

VAPT tools are very important for the security of your business. They can help you find vulnerabilities in your systems and conduct penetration tests to assess the threat posed by these vulnerabilities. It is important to choose a VAPT tool that is right for your business, and there are a number of factors that you should consider when choosing a VAPT tool. These include the features offered by the tool, the price, the ease of use, etc.

A VAPT tool that is right for your business can help you save time and money, and it can also help you improve the security of your business. So make sure to choose carefully!