Penetration testing tools are necessary for enterprises that want to protect their applications from real-world cyber attacks. These tools identify vulnerabilities that could lead to breaches, like the 2017 Equifax data breach.
These specialized tools help identify gaps in software security posture by simulating real-world attacks that vulnerability assessments may not fully expose. The Equifax data breach is a stark example of the importance of penetration testing in addition to vulnerability assessments for enterprises.
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Penetration testing tools, sometimes called pen-testing tools, are dedicated software created to assess the security of an organization’s network, system, or application. Cybersecurity experts and ethical hackers use these tools to identify, exploit, and document vulnerabilities, providing actionable insights to enhance security and counter real-world cyberattacks.
Picking the right security testing tools can feel like choosing a superpower for your company's cybersecurity team. But with so many options out there, how do you know which ones are worth your time and money? Let's break it down into simple steps.
Look for CI/CD pipeline integration so the penetration testing tools can run tests automatically. Additionally, the vulnerability assessment integration gives a complete overview of the threats found and their impact if left unpatched.
Your penetration testing tool should offer support for multi-platform testing. The best mobile app penetration testing tool should be equipped with features like:
Top penetration testing tools offer manual penetration testing, during which security experts analyze your mobile application's threat landscape and business impact. Combine manual testing with automated vulnerability assessment to create a robust security strategy across your app portfolio.
The reporting and analytics features of the penetration testing tools for mobile applications should ideally include:
Look for customer reviews, certifications and compliances (ISO, SOC, GDPR, and HIPAA), and customer support responsiveness in the mobile app penetration testing tool over multiple channels.
The best penetration testing tools are easy to adopt and intuitive for users. They offer online documentation, a knowledge base, a help center, and assistance with the initial onboarding.
Let’s examine the top 7 penetration testing tools for enterprises and understand how they are equipped to secure mobile apps from cybersecurity attacks.
Appknox is one of the best penetration testing tools for analyzing the threat landscape of your mobile application. It offers manual and automated vulnerability assessments and covers 140+ automated SAST, DAST, and API VA scans on your mobile apps. It helps companies speed up their release cycles by 2X by scanning your app’s binary in <60 seconds and prioritizing risk severity based on CVSS scoring.
What sets Appknox apart from the other pen testing tools are:
Besides, Appknox helps organizations with a diverse portfolio of applications from multiple vendors identify inconsistent coding, testing, and security hygiene practices that create security gaps without a centralized testing tool. It combines manual and automated security assessments to seal off loose ends in application security.
The key features of Appknox’s mobile app penetration testing are:
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Appknox offers flexible, usage-based pricing based on the customer requirements with add-ons for manual testing.
Burp Suite by PortSwigger is a web vulnerability scanner that allows web security to test, find, and exploit vulnerabilities faster with automated DAST scanning. Bulk actions allow users to run recurring DAST scans across thousands of sites.
The key offerings include automated scanning, manual testing, and advanced vulnerability discovery.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Astra Security is a continuous penetration testing tool that supports manual pen tests, continuous scanning, a vulnerability management system, and an Al-assisted engine. It also supports web apps, mobile apps, and API pen tests.
The plug-and-play automated penetration testing tool offers a Chrome extension for login recording and enables authenticated scans behind login pages without repetitive reauthentication.
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Cons
Pricing
Nmap, or Network Mapper, is an open-source tool for security auditing and network scanning. It is designed to scan large networks and can work with single hosts. Using IP packets, Nmap identifies the hosts in the network, their services, their OS, the types of firewalls they use, and several other elements.
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Pricing
A collaboration between the open-source community and Rapid7, Rapid7's Metasploit is a penetration testing framework that helps verify vulnerabilities, manage security assessments, and improve security awareness. Metasploit comes pre-installed on the Kali Linux operating system.
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Pricing
OpenVAS is an open-source, full-featured vulnerability scanner that provides vulnerability assessments and security audits. The penetration testing tool performs unauthenticated and authenticated testing, performance tuning for large-scale scans, and can implement any vulnerability test.
Pros
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Pricing
Mobile Security Framework (MobSF) is used for mobile application security, penetration testing, malware analysis, and privacy analysis. The framework can run both static and dynamic analyses and supports Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile.
Pros
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Pricing
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Tool |
Key features |
Best for |
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Appknox |
Mobile app security |
Mobile app security and compliance testing |
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Burp Suite |
Web vulnerability scanner |
Web application security testing |
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Astra |
Continuous scanning |
Website security and compliance audits |
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Nmap |
Network discovery |
Network scanning and auditing |
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Metasploit |
Exploit modules |
Exploit testing |
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OpenVAS |
Vulnerability scanning |
Network vulnerability management |
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MobSF |
Static and dynamic mobile app security analysis |
Mobile application developers |
Enterprise organizations require penetration testing tools that cater to multi-platform infrastructures across their entire mobile application portfolio.
Pen-testing tools that offer end-to-end penetration testing and vulnerability assessment generate comprehensive reports and integrate with CI/CD and vulnerability assessment workflows are ideal.
Appknox is one of the best penetration testing tools for enterprise organizations with several mobile applications that want to accelerate their time to market.
With <1% false positives, comprehensive penetration testing, combined manual and automated testing, simulated real-world attacks, and on-call support for mitigating vulnerabilities, Appknox manages the security assessment of your entire mobile app ecosystem.
To learn more about Appknox’s mobile app penetration testing platform, sign up for a free trial now!
Penetration testing assesses the security of an application, system, or network by simulating a cyber attack. It helps enterprises strengthen their defenses by identifying vulnerabilities and weaknesses that attackers can exploit.
Enterprise penetration testing is a comprehensive security testing focused on large-scale organizations. It usually contains complex infrastructure, multiple networks, systems, and applications.
The three main types of penetration testing tools are white box testing, black box testing, and gray box testing.
Penetration testing means exploiting the vulnerability to simulate a cyberattack. Vulnerability assessment involves identifying and listing down the vulnerabilities.
Penetration testing should be performed at least once a year or whenever major updates are made to the application, system, or network.
Yes, security testing tools like Appknox can be easily integrated with other development and CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Circle CI, GitLab CI, and more. You can integrate them with Slack, Teams, and Jira for better communication and faster release cycles.