Which web service testing tool is open-source and offers plugins for different attack types?

• A. SoapUI Pro
• B. XMLSpy
• C. Web API
• D. WS-Attacker

Answer: (D)

Web services security testing benefits from a tool that is freely available and easily extendable with modules that perform different attack types. WS-Attacker is an open-source framework built specifically for testing the security of web services. Its plugin-based architecture lets testers add or swap modules that implement various attacks—such as tampering SOAP messages, manipulating headers, or sending malformed requests—so you can explore how a service responds to a range of threat scenarios. This combination—being open-source and supporting plugins for multiple attack types—is what makes it the best fit. The other options don’t offer the same open-source security-testing framework with a modular attack-plugin system: SoapUI Pro is commercial and focused on functional/API testing, XMLSpy is an XML editor/IDE, and Web API is a general API concept, not a security-testing tool with attack plugins.