Joomla! Ensures Website Security with Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner

Acunetix WVS audits Joomla! site for SQL Injection, XSS and other vulnerabilities

London, UK – 26 October, 2006 – Joomla!, an award-winning, open-source content management system, uses Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner to automatically audit its PHP-based website. Acunetix WVS scans the site for SQL injection, cross-site scripting and other vulnerabilities, thereby averting possible hacker attacks.

The need for an automated security auditing tool
The Joomla! Core Team Quality & Testing Working Group’s mission is to help improve the quality, stability and security of the Joomla! Core Code, through continuous rigorous testing and quality reporting. The extensive PHP-based Joomla! Core Code was, until recently, tested manually. "Performing a manual security audit each time we released a new version would take up too many hours and resources. Manual auditing is highly complex and it means that you have to keep track of considerable volumes of code as well as the latest techniques being used by hackers. Finding an automated solution was, therefore, essential," said Mr. Muilwijk, member of the Quality and Testing Team.

Vulnerabilities discovered using Acunetix WVS
Using Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner, the developers at Joomla! were able to find high-risk SQL Injection vulnerabilities in no time. “The issues detected were of a major impact, if users/hackers would have found the security holes, they could have hacked an entire Joomla! site,” said Mr. Muilwijk. Besides SQL Injection vulnerabilities, the software detected some low-level vulnerabilities related to the web server setup.

Fixing the bugs
“With Acunetix WVS, our developers were able to spot the vulnerabilities immediately and the issues were fixed quite easily,” said Mr. Muilwijk “It was just a matter of using correct PHP standards and other practices such as input filtering. We ran the scans a few times on every new release, to ensure we did not miss any new issues after changing the core code. With Acunetix WVS we were able to improve the quality, stability and security of Joomla!“

The full case study can be viewed at: http://www.acunetix.com/vulnerability-scanner/cs_joomla.htm

About Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner
Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner ensures website security by automatically checking for SQL injection, Cross site scripting and other vulnerabilities. Furthermore, Acunetix protects against the embedding of Javascript malware in a web-page through its JavaScript Analyzer. Such protection secures all AJAX applications. Acunetix WVS also checks password strength on authentication pages and automatically audits shopping carts, forms, dynamic content and other web applications. As the scan is being completed, the software produces detailed reports that pinpoint where vulnerabilities exist.

Acunetix provides free audit to help companies determine the security of their websites
Enterprises who would like to have their website security checked can register for a free audit by visiting www.acunetix.com/security-audit. Participating enterprises will receive a summary audit report showing whether their website is secure or not. Summary reports will be delivered within five business days of submission.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Please email Tamara Borg: tamara@acunetix.com
Acunetix Ltd: Tel: (+44) 0845 6126712, Fax: (+44) 0845 6126716
URL: http://www.acunetix.com.

About Joomla!
Joomla! is a free, award-winning content management system written in PHP which allows users to easily publish their content on the world wide web and intranets. Joomla! is created as an open-source project where individuals and teams contribute their skills to its development as well as its supporting systems.

What sets Joomla! apart is the team’s dedication to keeping things as simple as possible while providing the most features possible. Finally, non-technical people can have complete control over their websites without paying exorbitant amounts for closed, proprietary software.

The name Joomla! is a phonetic spelling for the Swahili word "Jumla", which means "all together" or "as a whole". More information at: http://dev.joomla.org/

About Acunetix
Acunetix was founded to combat the alarming rise in web attacks. Its flagship product, Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner, is the result of several years of development by a team of highly experienced security developers. Acunetix is a privately held company with headquarters based in Europe (Malta), a US office in Seattle, Washington and an office in London, UK. For more information about Acunetix, visit: http://www.acunetix.com; http://www.acunetix.de.

This release was published on openPR.