Client moves away from Open-Source to Acunetix to protect thousands of websites
“We advise a number of large multinationals, including banks, retailers and telcos, on cyber security optimisation and best practice procedures. For this global operative we undertook stringent testing and Acunetix clearly came out ahead of the pack. Acunetix has now become a key part of their overall web security strategy.” Jeremy Quadri, MD of Quadri Consulting
Following an in-depth web app security test by leading UK security consultants Quadri Consulting, Acunetix has come out in top spot, ahead of QualysGuard and HP WebInspect. The research was undertaken on behalf of one of world’s largest consumer operative brands as part of their procurement and due diligence procedure.
Acunetix has been chosen to safeguard the retail and banking giant’s online websites and web applications – numbering in the thousands – by automatically and proactively detecting vulnerabilities that may exist and could allow access by malicious users and cyber criminals. Acunetix is not only being used for the client’s customer-facing web apps, but also its intranet systems for staff access. On top of having their own data centre to host systems, the group also uses the AWS Cloud to host some pertinent digital assets, Acunetix is now used to assess the security of both environments.
The client realised that with its previous open-source solution vulnerability detection accuracy was simply not high enough. Therefore they looked for a commercial tool to: integrate with and improve the web app firewall’s security policy, detect the most vulnerabilities, offer ease of use and provide the ability to automate and schedule the scans. Acunetix was found to closely meet the stringent client objectives. The procurement decision was also based on following attributes; total cost of ownership, appliance based, update service, industry recognition and exploitation engine.
Once vulnerabilities are detected, companies must of course act on the intelligence. This global brand is no exception and their application development team ensure identified vulnerabilities are passed on and actioned appropriately. The vulnerability scanner is now run once a week, over the weekend when resource usage is at its lowest, and it gathers the results automatically on a content management server, prioritised by severity. This is then reviewed by the team and a priority of fixes is created to minimise risk.
Jeremy Quadri, MD of Quadri Consulting, says: “We advise a number of large multinationals, including banks, retailers and telcos, on cyber security optimisation and best practice procedures. For this global operative we undertook stringent testing and Acunetix clearly came out ahead of the pack. Acunetix has now become a key part of their overall web security strategy.”
The Acunetix offering garnered praise for both its feature rich interface and ease of use. It also showed a strong roadmap both of features that the client would look to take advantage of and usability enhancements.
Chris Martin, General Manager at Acunetix, added: “We’re delighted to have come top in this report – we are always happy to be directly compared to our rivals in the market. Our accuracy, ease of use and cost of ownership mean Acunetix is trusted across the globe by governments, corporations and institutions to minimise their risk online.”
About Quadri Consulting
We are experienced security consultants who work with in-house IT teams of Banks and Telcos in the UK and internationally. We seamlessly deliver reduced costs and increased profitability through the optimisation of security and best practice. We protect information from theft and leakage, safeguard client confidentiality and ensure continuous service availability. In recent years, we have advised CTOs and CIOs, trained their staff and implemented projects in excess of $133m. http://www.quadriconsulting.com/