System and method for testing web applications with recursive discovery and analysis

1. A method for testing web applications with recursive discovery and analysis comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a target;

(b) crawling the target to discover a plurality of analyzable objects;

(c) conduct attack sequences on the plurality of analyzable objects;

(d) discovering an additional analyzable object during the attack sequence, such additional analyzable object not being readily apparent to a crawl process, and continuing at step (b) with the additional analyzable object used as an input to be used during said crawling.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the target is a URL and the step of crawling the target further comprises parsing the HTML and objects associated with the URL.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the target is a web application accessible at a URL, and the step of crawling the target involves examining the web application.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of crawling comprises searching the target for links, sessions and files.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the step of discovering an additional analyzable object comprises discovering an additional link, session or file.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising the step of providing attack results.

7. A method for testing web applications with recursive discovery and analysis comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a target;

(b) crawling the target to discover one or more analyzable objects;

(c) while crawling the target, conduct attack sequences on the one or more analyzable objects as they are discovered;

(d) discovering one or more additional analyzable objects during the attack sequences, and

(e) continuing at step (b) with each additional analyzable object used as an input to be used during said crawling.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising a depth limit, and the step of continuing at step (b) with each additional analyzable object is restricted by the depth limit.

9. A system for testing web applications with recursive discovery and analysis, the system comprising:

a memory and a processor executing the following;

a sessions table for housing sessions;

a crawler that is operable to:

retrieve information from the sessions table;

examine one or more web items associated with the session information;

identifying additional sessions; and

entering additional sessions identified into the sessions table;

a request queue that is operable to:

extract unsent session information from the sessions table and to exercise a web application using the extracted session information; and

receive response information from the web application and enter the response information into the sessions table in a manner to associate the response with the extracted session information;

a parser operative to:

extract session information from the sessions table and search the session information to identify vulnerabilities and sessions;

and enter identified vulnerabilities and sessions into the sessions table;

and an application audit that is operable to attack the web application while the crawler is still operating by applying the session information within the sessions table and, upon discovering new sessions provide the new sessions as input to the crawler.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the operation of the crawler and the request queue can be substantially in parallel.

11. The system of claim 9 , wherein the operation of the crawler, the request queue and the parser can be substantially in parallel.

12. The system of claim 9 , wherein the operation of the crawler, the request queue, the parser and the application audit can be in parallel.

13. The system of claim 9 , wherein the entries into the session table initially include a request, and once the request queue has sent the request, includes any response received from sending the request.

14. The system of claim 9 , wherein if the application audit identifies additional sessions, the application audit enters these additional sessions into the session table to be operated on by the crawler.

15. The system of claim 9 , wherein if the application audit identifies additional sessions, the application audit enters these additional sessions into the session table to be operated on by the crawler, the request queue and the parser.

16. The system of claim 9 , wherein the system includes an interface over which the system can receive an initial entry into the sessions table.

17. The system of claim 9 , further comprising a proxy, wherein the proxy can enter additional sessions into the session table.

18. A method for analyzing web based objects using recursive discovery and analysis, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a web-based address of a target;

(b) crawling the target starting at the web-based address to discover one or more analyzable objects;

(c) parsing each discovered analyzable object to discover a first additional object;

(d) conduct attack sequences on each analyzable object;

(e) discovering a second additional analyzable object during the attack sequences, and continuing at step (b) with the first and second additionally discovered analyzable objects used as an input to be used during said crawling.

19. A storage device containing software that, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to:

receive a web-based address of a target;

crawl the target starting at the web-based address to discover an analyzable object;

parse said discovered analyzable object to discover a first additional object;

conduct an attack sequence on said analyzable object;

discover a second additional analyzable object during the attack sequence; and

crawl the target using the second additional analyzable object discovered during the attack sequence as input to the crawl.