Does Acunetix support specific JavaScript frameworks?

There is a stark difference between modern and traditional web applications – most modern web applications need to be dynamic. When we started working on Acunetix in 2004, understanding websites was relatively easy – the scanner (and browser) only needed to interpret the HTML tags correctly.

Modern web applications need to be dynamic and that can only be achieved by placing more code in the browser, in the form of JavaScript. This means that the browser and the automated web scanning engine need to understand the logic written in JavaScript. This is usually achieved by integrating a browser engine, which is able to better understand such web applications. Acunetix DeepScan uses the Chromium engine to achieve this.

Over the years, a number of JavaScript frameworks have been created, which make life easier for front end developers and attempt to promote web development consistency. While the integrated browser engine is able to understand generic JavaScript, the browser needs to be guided to cater for functionality that is specific to the JavaScript Framework.

The 3 most popular JavaScript frameworks are Angular, Vue, and React. While Acunetix has always been able to process single-page applications developed using these frameworks, newer versions of Acunetix continually become better at identifying and interpreting the functionality built using these frameworks. The end result is that web applications that use these frameworks will be scanned more comprehensively.