Web application cartography: mapping out Burp Suite’s crawler
Summary: PortSwigger's crawler for Burp Suite 2, released in mid-2018, maps an application's functionality and the steps needed to reach it, feeding paths and expected-response features into the audit phase so each payload is sent in the correct session context. The crawler distinguishes session state changes from application state changes by clearing cookies and re-walking recorded paths, and it refines its identification of pages and links as volatile content and reusable templates cause responses to differ between visits.
Why it matters: Burp Suite 1's spider could fail silently on applications using session state, authentication, or CSRF tokens, continuing to send attacks with no indication the target was no longer being hit; the crawler's path and response-matching data is what lets the audit confirm each request still lands where intended.
Read the original at PortSwigger Research ↗
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