Exploring Penetration Testing: A Comparative Analysis of Brute Force Directory Tools in Vulnerability Analysis Phase

The rising frequency of cyber threats necessitates advanced security measures. Penetration testing, such as vulnerability analysis, is vital for evaluating and enhancing system security. Brute-force directory tools, such as Dirbuster, FFUF, and Dirsearch, are utilized to discover hidden directories or files on web servers, which may serve as entry points for attacks. Despite advancements, there is a lack of in-depth comparison between these tools. This study evaluates the request speed, execution time, CPU utilization, memory footprint, and detection capabilities. Results show that Dirsearch excels with fastest execution time (1024.87 s), highest request rate (8607 req/s), lowest CPU utilization (101%), and moderate memory footprint (267341 kB), making it the most resource-efficient tool. While all tools identified 16 vulnerabilities, Dirsearch emerges as the optimal choice because of its superior performance and efficiency, particularly in resource-constrained scenarios.