Streamlining Wordlist Workflows within Burp Suite
Application Security
Juveria Banu
9 May 2025
At Wilbourne, we continually look for ways to refine our application penetration testing processes to elevate the value offered to our clients. Wordlists are one of many key components utilised while testing the security of our clients’ web and mobile applications, from fuzzing endpoints to brute forcing directories. However, we noticed that traditional methods for managing these wordlists were introducing unnecessary friction into our testing workflows.
Current Challenges when Managing Wordlists in Burp Suite
Burp Suite offers immense flexibility, particularly with its built-in support for payload manipulation using Intruder. However, when handling wordlists, we found ourselves repeatedly confronting the same challenges for each client engagement:
1
Manually downloading wordlist files from third-party sources.
2
Maintaining local copies of the wordlist.
3
Reimporting the wordlist into Burp Suite.
The inconvenience of this process was consuming the time of our consultants and took away from more intricate data flows being tested.
We needed a solution that could be embedded into our daily workflow, without introducing additional risk or friction.
Solving These Challenges with the Wordlist Importer Extension
To address these challenges, we developed Wordlist Importer, a Burp Suite extension designed to simplify wordlist management through an automated import process.
Key Features
1
Import Directly From the Source
Users can load wordlists directly from URLs, GitHub repositories, or local files, removing the need to manually download, unzip, or track files across directories. All wordlist data will stay within the testing environment.
2
Maintain a Centralised Wordlist History
The extension automatically tracks previously used sources, giving penetration testers access to a reusable, consistent history of reliable wordlists. This alone reduces duplicated effort and improved consistency across assessments.
3
Merge Wordlists, Deduplicate and Optimise
Users can select multiple wordlists from the extension history and merge them into a single list with no redundant entries. Whether sourcing from URLs, local files, or a combination of both, the extension makes it easy to consolidate lists for more comprehensive testing.
4
Export Merged Wordlists
Once the final list is ready, it can be exported as a local file for reuse in future tests or for sharing with team members. This makes for simple and consistent collaboration across engagements.
5
Integrate Seamlessly with Intruder
Rather than requiring additional export and import steps, Wordlist Importer allows direct integration with Burp Suite’s Intruder tool. This enables consultants to immediately begin fuzzing or brute-forcing without interrupting their workflow.
6
Support for UTF-8 Encoding
Engagements for clients operating web or mobile applications intended for a non-UK market often require wordlists with non-English character sets. With full UTF-8 support, Wordlist Importer ensures compatibility with non-English languages and character-sensitive payloads.
Open-Sourcing Our Burp Suite Extension
We are committed to supporting the advancement of application security. As part of this effort, we are pleased to release our Burp Suite Wordlist Importer Extension as an open-source project on GitHub, making it freely available to all cybersecurity professionals. This extension offers a flexible solution for importing, managing, and merging wordlists, improving the efficiency of security testing workflows.
​You can check out and contribute to this project at
https://github.com/wilbourne-labs/WordlistImporter
We look forward to seeing how the security community makes use of this extension to optimise wordlist management and further advance the effectiveness of application security testing.
Looking Ahead
As the demand for performing penetration tests that provide elevated value beyond automated capabilities and AI solutions grows, efficiency is more important than ever. Wilbourne’s Wordlist Importer tool supports the mission of delivering high-quality and value-driven penetration tests for our clients.
We are proud to share this extension with the broader security community and hope it enables others to spend less time managing lists and more time doing what we do best, hunting for security vulnerabilities.