Web Security Scanner - Technical Documentation

Project Overview

This project is a comprehensive web security scanning tool designed to identify and report vulnerabilities in websites. The application consists of a full-stack architecture with Python/Flask backend services and JavaScript frontend. The tool provides a user-friendly interface to scan websites for common vulnerabilities, generate reports, and visualize security scores.

Application Architecture

The application follows a client-server architecture with the following components:

1. Main Security Scanner Backend

   • Core scanning functionality for detecting vulnerabilities
   • Handles HTTP request analysis and security header checks
   • Implements SSL/TLS security assessment
   • Provides vulnerability detection for SQL Injection, XSS, and form vulnerabilities
   • Technology detection capabilities

2. Report Generation Backend

   • AI-enhanced PDF analysis service for vulnerability reporting
   • Extracts text from uploaded security PDFs
   • Integrates with OpenAI API to analyze vulnerabilities

3. Frontend Components

   • Report generation functionality
   • Security score calculation and visualization

Backend Components

Main Security Scanner

Core Functionalities:

• Security Header Analysis: Checks for missing security headers like Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, etc.
• SSL/TLS Assessment: Verifies certificate validity, supported protocols, and identifies vulnerabilities
• Configuration Analysis: Identifies security misconfigurations in HTTP settings
• Vulnerability Detection:
  • SQL Injection testing with various payloads
  • Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) detection
  • Form vulnerability analysis
• Technology Detection: Identifies web technologies, frameworks, and server types

API Endpoints:

• GET /: Serves the frontend application
• GET /<path:filename>: Serves static files
• POST /scan: Main endpoint that performs security scanning
  • Returns comprehensive security assessment results

PDF Analysis Service

This service is designed to extract text from security report PDFs and analyze them using AI.

Core Functionalities:

• PDF Text Extraction: Extracts text from uploaded PDF files
• AI-Enhanced Analysis: Uses OpenAI GPT-3.5 Turbo to analyze security vulnerabilities from the generated report
• Memory-Efficient Processing: Implements strategies to handle PDFs with large file sizes

API Endpoints:

• POST /api/upload-pdf: Handles PDF uploads and returns vulnerability analysis
  • Accepts multipart form data with a PDF file
  • Returns AI-generated analysis of vulnerabilities detected in the report

Frontend Components

Report Generation

The generateReport() function creates comprehensive PDF reports of security scans using jsPDF.

Features:

• Title page with scanned URL and timestamp
• Security score visualization
• Detailed sections for:
  • Missing security headers
  • Security misconfigurations
  • SSL/TLS analysis and certificate details
  • Detected vulnerabilities (SQL Injection, XSS, vulnerable forms)
  • Technology detection results

Security Score Calculation

The frontend implements a scoring feature that calculates a security score based on detected issues.

UI Components:

• Results Display: Shows a summary of scan results with color-coded indicators
• Score Visualization: Circular progress indicator that changes color based on score
• Report Download: Button to generate and download comprehensive PDF reports

Key Security Checks

Security Headers

The application checks for the presence of critical security headers:

• Strict-Transport-Security: Protects against MiTM attacks by forcing HTTPS
• Content-Security-Policy: Prevents XSS and injection attacks
• X-Frame-Options: Prevents clickjacking attacks
• X-Content-Type-Options: Prevents MIME sniffing
• Referrer-Policy: Controls referrer information

SSL/TLS Analysis

Comprehensive SSL/TLS security assessment including:

• Certificate validation and expiration checking
• Protocol support analysis (identifying insecure TLS 1.0/1.1)
• Cipher suite evaluation
• Security best practices verification

Vulnerability Testing

SQL Injection

The application uses a variety of SQL injection payloads to test URL parameters and form inputs, including:

• Basic SQL syntax testing (', ")
• Authentication bypass attempts (' OR '1'='1)
• Database manipulation payloads (1'; DROP TABLE users; --)
• Union-based injection attempts (' UNION SELECT 1,2,3 --)

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Tests for XSS vulnerabilities with payloads like:

• Basic script execution (<script>alert(1)</script>)
• Event handler injections (<img src=x onerror=alert(1)>)
• JavaScript URI schemes (javascript:alert(1))
• HTML attribute injections
• DOM-based XSS vectors

Form Vulnerability Analysis

• Identifies insecure form implementations
• Tests each form field with various payloads
• Detects reflection of unsanitized input

Usage Instructions

Running the Scanner

1. Enter a target URL in the input field
2. Click the scan button to initiate the security assessment
3. Review the comprehensive results:
   • Overall security score
   • Missing security headers
   • Detected vulnerabilities
   • SSL/TLS configuration issues
   • Identified technologies

PDF Report

The generated PDF report contains:

• Security score and summary
• Detailed vulnerability assessment
• Technical findings organized by category
• Certificate details for HTTPS sites
• Technology stack information

AI-Enhanced Analysis

To utilize the AI analysis feature:

1. Upload a security report PDF (max 2MB)
2. The system will extract text and analyze vulnerabilities
3. Review the AI-generated assessment of security issues

Technical Requirements

Backend

• Python 3.6+
• Flask web framework
• Required Python libraries:
  • requests
  • BeautifulSoup4
  • PyPDF2
  • OpenAI Python client
  • python-dotenv
  • flask-cors
  • OpenSSL

Frontend

• HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript
• jsPDF library for PDF generation

Conclusion

This web security scanner provides a comprehensive solution for identifying security vulnerabilities in web applications. By combining automated scanning with AI-enhanced analysis, it offers both technical details and actionable insights to improve web application security posture.