What are the best practices for configuring and customizing your web application scanner?

1 Choose the right scanner

Not all web application scanners are created equal. Some are more suited for certain types of web applications, technologies, or testing scenarios than others. Before you choose a scanner, you should evaluate its features, performance, accuracy, and compatibility with your web application. You should also consider the cost, support, and updates of the scanner. Ideally, you should test different scanners on a sample web application and compare the results.

2 Scope your scan

Scoping your scan means defining the boundaries and objectives of your web application testing. You should decide which parts of your web application you want to scan, which ones you want to exclude, and which ones you want to prioritize. You should also set the depth and breadth of your scan, as well as the frequency and schedule of your scan. Scoping your scan will help you save time, resources, and bandwidth, as well as avoid unnecessary noise and false positives.

3 Configure your scan settings

Your scan settings determine how your scanner will interact with your web application and what kind of vulnerabilities it will look for. You should configure your scan settings according to your web application's characteristics, such as its architecture, functionality, and security controls. You should also adjust your scan settings to match your testing environment, such as its network conditions, authentication methods, and access rights. Some of the scan settings you should configure include the scan speed, the crawl and audit options, the proxy settings, the user agent, the cookies, the headers, the parameters, and the payloads.

4 Customize your scan policies

Your scan policies define the rules and criteria that your scanner will use to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in your web application. You should customize your scan policies according to your testing goals, such as compliance, penetration testing, or vulnerability assessment. You should also tailor your scan policies to fit your web application's risk profile, such as its threat landscape, its business impact, and its regulatory requirements. Some of the scan policies you should customize include the vulnerability types, the severity levels, the attack vectors, the verification methods, and the reporting formats.

5 Validate and verify your scan results

Your scan results are the output of your web application scanner, which show you the vulnerabilities it has found and exploited in your web application. However, your scan results are not always accurate or reliable. You should validate and verify your scan results before you act on them. You should check for false positives, false negatives, and duplicates in your scan results. You should also confirm the exploitability and the impact of the vulnerabilities in your scan results. You can use manual testing, code review, or other tools to validate and verify your scan results.

6 Review and improve your scan process

Your scan process is the overall workflow of your web application scanning, which includes planning, executing, analyzing, and reporting your scan. You should review and improve your scan process after each scan cycle. You should evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of your scan process, as well as the quality and usefulness of your scan results. You should also identify the gaps and challenges in your scan process, as well as the opportunities and solutions for improvement. You can use feedback, metrics, or benchmarks to review and improve your scan process.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?