Its very rare to find out a good n effective web application security assessment tool and would make it almost impossible if you want it for free. After a long time of hunt, I found one; CAT – Context App Tool. Although its free, it offers a good GUI and powerful features along with the basic ones which comes with a every proxy available.
Features
There are a number of features which CAT has to enable a wide variety of testing to be conducted:
- Request Repeater – Used for repeating a single request
- Proxy – Classic Inline proxy
- Fuzzer – Allows for batch of tests to be sent to a server for brute forcing, parameter fuzzing, forced browsing etc.
- Log – View a list of requests to sort, search repeat etc. Allows for a sequence of requests to be repeated and modified.
- Authentication Checker – Two synchronised proxies which can be used to check authentication and authorisation controls.
- SSL Checker – Request a specific page with various SSL ciphers and versions.
- Notepad – A text/RTF editor which can be used as a scratch pad for conversions etc.
- Web Browser – An integrated web browser with proxy pre-configured based on the Internet Explorer’s rendering engine.
Reasons to use CAT
There are a number of differences between CAT and currently available web proxies. Some key differences are:
- Uses Internet Explorer’s rendering engine for accurate HTML representation
- Supports many different types of text conversions including: URL, Base64, Hex, Unicode, HTML/XML, SQL and JavaScript no Quotes
- Integrated SQL Injection and XSS Detection
- Synchronised Proxies for Authentication and Authorisation checking
- Faster due to HTTP connection caching
- SSL Version and Cipher checker using OpenSSL
- Greater flexibility for importing/exporting logs and saving projects
- Tabbed Interface allowing for multiple tools at once e.g. multiple repeaters and different logs
- The ability to repeat and modify a sequence of requests (particularly useful in SSO testing)
- Free!








