What is Burp Suite: Download, Tools, Use, Community, Alternatives

Are you also struggling to learn how to use the Burp Suite efficiently? Burp is a complete suite of tools that is designed for web security testing. This suite has become a go-to choice for people interested in web app security, such as bug bounty hunters and penetration testers.

Burp was developed by the company “Portswigger,” and the founder of this company is Dafydd Stuttard. BurpSuite is an all-in-one set of tools, and its capacities can be improved by installing add-ons called BApps.

This comprehensive guide will help you by walking you through the whole process. We will cover each detail, from how to download BurpSuite, its tools, community, use, and many more. But before diving into the details of Burp, we would like to tell you about penetration testing, for which the Burp Suite tool is used.

What Is Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing is a security protection exercise where a cyber-security professional attempts to find and eliminate computer system vulnerabilities. This function aims to search for any weak points in a system’s defences, that any hacker could take the benefit of.

One of the penetration testing tools is Burp Suite, consisting of multiple tools that are used for web application security testing. However, it is best to have a pen test or penetration testing by someone with little or no knowledge of how the system is safe. The reason behind this is that they can find the weak spots that were missed by the developers who built it.

Some Types Of Penetration Testing:

White box Pen Test: White box penetration testing, also known as oblique or crystal box. It involves sharing full system and network information with the tester. Also, it includes network credentials and maps.

Black Box Pen Test: The black box pen test does not provide information to the tester at all. The penetration testing follows the method of an unprivileged attacker starting from initial execution and access through to exploitation.

Grey Box Pen Test: The grey box pen test is also called a translucent box test, and only restricted information is being shared with the tester. This testing is helpful to understand the level of access a user could achieve and the possible damage they could cause.

What Is a Burp Suite?

In 2003, Burp Suite was started by Dafydd Stuttard and was developed by PortSwigger. Dafydd wrote the very first version of Burp. Big Bounty Hunter’s favourite, BurpSuite, is a compilation of web app testing tools that are specially designed for penetration testing.

Burp is a web vulnerability tool basically comprising multiple tools to find a computer system’s weakness. Testers use this tool, and after finding the vulnerabilities, they start to fix them to keep the system secure. It has multiple pros, but one of the main notable advantages of using Burp is that it can intercept HTTP requests.

Burp Suite Edition:

Two versions are available in the BurpSuite, including the paid and free versions. We will discuss both the versions briefly:

Burp Suite Community Edition (Free Version):

The free edition of BurpSuite contains all the required features to carry out the web application’s manual security testing. Some of the critical features include the ability to modify and inspect traffic between the browser and the target application.

It does this by crawling application content, and functionality, and intercepting proxy using the application-aware Spider. On the other hand, it resends and manipulates individual requests using the repeater tool. Also, it benefits from multiple other convenient utilities for decoding and analyzing application data.

It Includes:

Burp intruder (demo)
HTTPS/WebSockets history and proxy
Tools such as Comparer, Decoder, Repeater, and Sequencer

Burp Suite Professional Edition (Paid Version)

This paid version of Burp Suite offers multiple powerful features to make your work more effective and faster. It also lets you find more vulnerabilities in a relatively shorter time. The major difference between the two versions is that the professional version provides automated web scanning abilities unavailable in the free version.

The state-of-the-art web app Scanner is an effective tool that automatically can examine for security faults and generate thorough reports of vulnerabilities found. This feature can also save users effort and time when testing large web applications.

It Includes:

Web vulnerability scanner
Search function
Manual and auto OAST testing
Pro-exclusive BApp extension
Discover and crawl content for test automatically
Orchestra custom attacks
Project files that save your work

Top 10 Burp Suite Tools:

Here are the top 10 Burp Suite tools:

Proxy: This tool is helpful in modifying and intercepting web traffic between the target web application and the web traffic.
Scanner: Identifies vulnerabilities of web applications, such as cross-site scripting and SQL injection.
Spider: This tool can crawl a website automatically and discover links on the site.
Sequencer: Analyzes the predictability and randomness of tokens, such as session IDs.
Repeater: This permits you to alter and resend individual requests as needed manually
Comparer: Allows you to compare the contents of two various responses or requests.
Intruder: A type of manual testing allowing you to perform customized attacks like brute login attacks.
Decoder: Allows you to intelligently or manually encode or decode the application’s data.
Target: This tool lets you manage and define the scope of the testing like the particular parameters to test.
Extender: Let’s add custom functionality to the burp suite tool, like new scanning checks.

How To Use Burp Suite?

Before knowing how to use and about the burp suite download, it is important to know why it is used in cybersecurity. BurpSuite is the complete framework that is used to carry out various activities, including:

Analysis of web applications
Web Crawling
Vulnerability detection
Web application testing for both automatically and manually

How To Download Burp Suite?

Follow the below-mentioned steps to download the Burp Suite for Windows effectively:

Enter the URL in any browser to open the website of PortSwigger.
On the website, click on ‘Products.’
Click on the Burp Suite Community edition.
Now, enter your email ID and click download.
After the download is completed, the Setup- Burp Community Edition 2022.12.6 dialog box will open, and click on Next.
You have to click the “Next” button twice and have to wait till the extraction of files is completed.
Click Finish, and open the tool by double-clicking on it.
In the Burp Suite Community window, click the I Accept option after reading all the Terms and Conditions.
The landing page of BurpSuite will open once the tool has been successfully installed and downloaded. Now, you can start using this tool efficiently.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Burp Suite:

There are multiple advantages and disadvantages of Burp Suite, which are mentioned below:

Advantages:

There are multiple advantages to using this tool. Some of the most notable advantages are as follows:

By using this tool, users can prevent various cyber attacks, including malware, phishing, etc.
This tool lets the user perform fully customized scans as per the requirement.
The BurpSuite constitutes a set of tools ensuring complete security testing.
This tool helps you to maintain user’s trust by safeguarding their personal and sensitive information.
Burp Suite permits the users to perform active scans involving sending extra data to the server. This also helps in the vulnerability to DoS attacks that can be checked.

Disadvantage:

It is one of the most famous penetration testing or pen test tools. it has some disadvantages to using this tool

Many features in the pro version are lacking in the free version of this tool.
The graphical interface is not user-friendly.
It has many other tools, making it tough to use for new or first-time users with very little information.

Some Burp Suite Alternatives:

Some top picks for the Burp Suite alternatives:

Astra Pentest: It combines a pen test solution with an automated vulnerability scanner. It automatically detects vulnerabilities while permitting manual review. This tool is suitable for those who are fresh to API testing. Those who don’t have the technical knowledge to configure install Burp Suite can use this

APIsec: It is designed to give users a thorough view of their API security posture by giving complete information on every aspect of an API’s security. Additionally, it makes it easy for the users to determine potential vulnerabilities take steps to eliminate them.

Acunetix: This easy-to-use web app security testing platform provides complete and exact results. Its various features make it a go-to Burp Suite alternative for API security testing. This platform uniquely detects and diminishes multiple vulnerabilities, including remote code execution (RCE), cross-site scripting (XSS), and SQL injection.

beSECURE: This all-in-one API security testing tool helps developers safeguard their API from attacks. The platform includes an effective set of tools for reporting and automation.

ZAP: This is one of the most popular Burp Suite alternatives providing an open-source web app security scanner. It was developed by OWASP and is used by numerous organizations around the world. It has a huge range of features available, including an automated scanner, fuzzer, proxy, and spider.

Final Line:

Burp Suite or Burp is a set of tools that are used for penetration testing or pen testing of web applications. It was invented by the Portwigger company and founded by Dafydd Stuttard. It aims to be an all-in-one set of tools, you can increase its capability by installing add-ons called BApps. We have mentioned some of its alternatives, don’t forget to check those out!