Acunetix announced today that the Free Edition of its web vulnerability scanner has been downloaded more than 50,000 times since its launch in early September 2007.   Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner (WVS) allows companies to test for cross site scripting vulnerabilities in their websites without incurring any costs.

Sarah Tabone, Sales Manager at Acunetix said, “We are delighted to see that the free edition of our product has been so well received in such a short period of time.  Businesses are starting to recognize the danger their web sites are under and are using the free edition of Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner (WVS) to protect them.

“The free XSS scanner is giving security officers around the world access to a specialized cross site scanning tool that allows them to evaluate their web sites for the threat of cross site scripting.”

Hackers use Cross Site Scripting to embed malicious scripts into a vulnerable dynamic page to deceive the user, executing the script on his/her machine to collect data. The use of XSS can compromise valuable private information, manipulate or steal cookies, create requests that can be taken for those of a valid user, or execute malicious code on the end-user systems. The data is typically formatted as a hyperlink with malicious content that is then distributed on the internet. Cross site scripting vulnerabilities are highly dangerous and there has been a serious increase in the number of the attacks in recent years.

The Free Edition of Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner is available at: http://www.acunetix.com/cross-site-scripting/scanner.htm.