It can be scary to think about how little of the modern attack surface many tools cover. There is no one best tool for the job and on top of that some tools don't do a great job at anything. Often in the hands of general users the capabilities and limitations are not even thought of during testing. Point, click, done. The attack surface of modern web environments as well as their protection mechanisms have become increasingly complicated and yet many tools have not adapted. Hey, Y2K called and it wants some applications tested.
There is certainly no shortage of vulnerabilities in modern web environments but we should be looking beyond low hanging fruit at this point. In between fully automated scanners and manual testing lies a sweet spot for the identification of vulnerabilities. Some of the juiciest pieces of information are not found by vulnerability scanners but are found by humans creating custom tests. This is why semi-automated testing space is so important. All of this complicated blending of protection mechanisms, services, and RIA technologies means that moving in to the area of semi-automated testing can be fraught with failure. We detail how these failures can be avoided. We also provide a tool that begins to solve some of these problems as well as provides analysis for your own tools and scripts. Your web applications have moved on, don't you think it's time your tools to do the same?