By RecOsint | Dec 6, 2025
The Free "Burp Suite" Professional hackers spend thousands on tools like Burp Suite Pro. But for beginners, OWASP ZAP is the gold standard. – Why: It is Open Source, Free, and maintained by the world's top security community (OWASP). – Goal: Find bugs automatically.
ZAP runs on everything (Windows, Mac, Linux/Kali). 1. Go to zaproxy.org and download the installer. 2. Crucial Step: ZAP needs Java to run. If it doesn't open, install the latest "Java JDK" first.
Ignore the Complexity When you open ZAP, it looks like a cockpit with 100 buttons. Relax. You only need ONE button right now. – Locate: The large box on the welcome screen that says "Automated Scan".
This feature is "Point and Shoot." 1. Click "Automated Scan". 2. URL to Attack: Enter the website address you want to test (e.g., your own test site). 3. Click the big "Attack" button.
ZAP does two things instantly: 1) Spider: It crawls every link on the site (like Google) to map the structure. 2) Active Scan: It throws harmless attacks (SQLi, XSS) at every input field to see if the site breaks.
Once finished, look at the "Alerts" tab at the bottom. It flags issues by color: – Red Flags: High Priority (Critical bugs). – Orange Flags: Medium Risk. – Yellow Flags: Low Risk (Information leak).
Strictly For Your Apps ZAP is a noisy tool. It sends thousands of requests in seconds. – Warning: Do NOT run this on a website you do not own (like Facebook or a government site). – Consequence: Their firewall will ban your IP, and it is illegal.
Automated scanning is just the start. Real hacking involves using ZAP as a "Man-in-the-Middle" proxy to manually test data. – Tip: Right-click an Alert to see how to fix it.