HACKING PROJECT · cloud · Advanced
Automated Web Attack Suite (XSS / SQLi / JSON-SQLi / DoS)
Automate detection of common web injection and availability vulnerabilities against authorized targets.
Web applications remain the dominant external attack surface, and injection and DoS flaws persist despite mature guidance. Manual testing does not scale across large app portfolios, and CI/CD velocity outpaces security review. Teams need automated, repeatable web-attack tooling to surface these classes early and consistently.
**What you'll build**
Build a modular web-attack framework that crawls a target, then runs pluggable modules for reflected/stored/DOM XSS, classic and JSON-based SQL injection, and controlled application-layer DoS/resource-exhaustion tests. Payloads are context-aware, findings are validated to reduce false positives, and results export in a triage-ready report. All testing is confined to authorized lab targets and safe to wire into a DevSecOps pipeline.
**Objective** — Automate detection of common web injection and availability vulnerabilities against authorized targets.
**Expected outcome** — A modular web-attack scanner producing validated, OWASP-mapped vulnerability reports.
**Difficulty** — Advanced — context-aware payload generation, DOM handling, and safe DoS testing require solid AppSec depth beyond basic scripting.
**Primary category** — AppSec; Secondary = Penetration Testing, DevSecOps
**Security domains** — Primary = Red Team; Secondary = DevSecOps, Purple Team, Security Research, Penetration Testing
**Technical focus** — Web crawling/spidering, Reflected/Stored/DOM XSS, SQL injection, JSON/NoSQL injection, Application-layer DoS, Payload generation, False-positive validation, Authenticated scanning, DAST integration
**Core technologies** — Languages: Python, JavaScript; Frameworks/Libraries: requests, Playwright/Selenium (DOM), BeautifulSoup, aiohttp; Security Tools: Burp Suite, OWASP ZAP, sqlmap (reference), DVWA/Juice Shop/WebGoat as targets; Cloud/Infra: containerized lab targets (Docker); AI/Data: payload corpora; Databases: SQLite for findings
**Where it's valued** — SaaS/web companies, penetration-testing firms, DevSecOps teams, e-commerce, fintech
**Careers it builds toward** — Application Security Engineer, Penetration Tester, DevSecOps Engineer, Bug Bounty Hunter
**Framework alignment**
• MITRE ATT&CK: Initial Access — Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); Impact — Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499), Network Denial of Service (T1498)
• NIST CSF 2.0: Identify (ID.RA), Protect (PR.PS — platform security), Detect (DE.CM)
• OWASP: Injection (A03:2021) covering SQLi and XSS, Security Misconfiguration (A05:2021); API — Injection concerns; relevant to OWASP DAST practices
• CIS Controls v8: 16 (Application Software Security), 18 (Penetration Testing), 13 (Network Monitoring and Defense)
**Innovation** — Improved Existing Solution — combines known DAST techniques with JSON-SQLi and validated-finding logic; strong portfolio value, moderate novelty. Scores: Innovation 6/10, Startup 5/10, Enterprise-Readiness 6/10, Patent = No.