Welcome
Welcome to the documentation for HCL AppScan Standard version 10.4.0
Getting started
This section provides a short tour of basic product features and procedures, including using the wizard to set up a scan.
Configuration
You configure a scan by choosing settings that best describe your application, and the kind of testing you want.
- Presets
  Presets give you the main configuration views needed for a particular type of scan.
- Views
  - Starting URL and domains
    Configure the Starting URL for the scan, and any additional servers and domains to be included.
  - API
    For scanning web APIs, define the your API type (improves coverage by better configuring custom parameters), explore method, and domains to be tested.
  - Exclude paths and files
    You can configure AppScan to ignore certain paths in the application, or specific types of file.
  - Multi-step operations
    Record and manage multi-step operations that are required to reach specific parts of the application that could otherwise be missed.
  - Login management
    Show AppScan® how to log in to your application.
    - Login method
      Configuration > Login management > Login method.
    - Login playback
      Configuration > Login management > Review & Validate tab
    - Session detection
      Advanced In-Session Request Selection dialog box, that opens from Configuration > Login > Review & Validate > Advanced Request Selection
      - Advanced pattern selection
        Use this dialog to compare in-session and out-of-session responses to login requests, to help you decide on the detection pattern that is best for your application. Opened by clicking
      - Optimizing In-Session Detection
        Reviewing the login sequence can help troubleshoot and optimize in-session detection.
    - Login session IDs
      Scan Configuration > Login Management > Session IDs tab.
    - Advanced login settings
      Scan Configuration > Login Management > Advanced tab.
  - Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
    Configure AppScan® to use one-time password or security questions (multi-factor authentication) when logging in.
  - HTTP authentication
    Add server-level authentication and client-side certificates, if required by the application.
  - AWS authorization
    Configure AWS settings.
  - Communication and proxy
    Configure communication timeout and proxy server settings.
  - Parameters, cookies & headers
    Identify session IDs and list parameters to exclude from the scan.
  - Automatic form fill
    Provide AppScan® with valid parameter values for filling forms in your application during the scan.
  - Error pages
    Add strings, regular expressions and URLs to identify your application's custom error pages.
  - Explore options
    Define the explore method (action-based, request-based, or both) that AppScan will use to explore the application, as well as other basic and advanced explore settings.
  - Test policy and optimization
    Define the collection of tests that will be sent to the application during testing (the test policy), and apply optimization for faster scans at times in the product lifecycle when speed is more important to you than scan depth.
  - Environment definition
    Environment definition is not essential, but enables AppScan® to safely refrain from sending non-relevant tests during the scan, resulting in a faster and more accurate scan. Customizing CVSS 3.1 environmental scores will improve the accuracy of your scan results.
  - Test options
    Additional test options.
  - Privilege escalation
    Compare scans that used different user privileges, to discover if privileged resources are accessible to non-privileged users.
  - Content-based view
    Lets you define a logical structure for the application tree, for cases where a URL-based tree will just be a long list under one or two URLs. This is not essential, but can make it much easier to navigate results.
  - Advanced configuration
    This view gives you access to many advanced registry settings and it should only be used by experienced AppScan users, or when instructed to do so by the support team to troubleshoot a problem.
- Scan using a Postman Collection
  If you have a Postman Collection of requests to your web API, you can import it and use it as the basis for a scan.
- Scan file structure
  Explains the basic structure of an AppScan Standard SCAN file.
- Scan templates
  A scan template is simply a scan configuration that has been saved so that you can use it again.
- Changing the configuration during a scan
Manual exploring
Manual exploring enables you to explore specific parts of your application, filling in fields and forms as you go. This can be a way of ensuring that particular areas of the site are covered, and that AppScan has the information needed to complete forms correctly.
Scanning
Learn how to start a scan, and what happens during the scan; how to manually manipulate the Explore stage, and how to export the results of a scan.
Data
Data view is populated with information about the structure of the site during the Explore stage of the scan.
Issues
Issues view provides access to the results of a scan. You can view results at a high level or select specific tests or objects and access more details. These details include how to fix, requests/responses, and differences between the test variants that resulted in issues. You can manipulate the severity of issues, resend tests (with or without modifications), and create reports based on Issues.
Reports
This section describes how to generate reports from the scan results.
Tools
This section explains how to use additional tools provided with HCL AppScan Standard.
Integrations
This section describes integrations of other applications with AppScan Standard:
Best practices
This section contains some best practices and use cases for advanced users.
FAQ & Troubleshooting
CLI
This section describes the syntax and options available using the Command line interface.
References
Menus and toolbar summaries, and glossary

Optimizing In-Session Detection

Reviewing the login sequence can help troubleshoot and optimize in-session detection.

About this task

AppScan attempts to identify automatically an "In-Session Detection Pattern" that occurs on the in-session page, that it can use during the scan to verify that it is still logged in. This should be a pattern that occurs in the page's response only when you are logged in. An example might be text that reads: "Click here to log out".

During the scan, AppScan sends the in-session request repeatedly, and checks that the response contains the In-Session Detection Pattern. If AppScan does not find the pattern in the page's response, AppScan assumes it has been logged out, and attempts to log in again by replaying the login sequence. It follows that the login sequence is typically played many times during a scan. It is therefore best that it contains as few steps as possible. It is also helpful if the In-Session page is a small page, and does not contain tracked parameters or cookies, since these can also increase scan time significantly.

When the defined in-session pattern is detected in the in-session request, (the request immediately following the POST request), it is highlighted in green.

Procedure

Verify that the In-Session Detection Pattern that was automatically selected is in fact an indication that the user is logged in. If necessary, change it.
Verify that there are no unnecessary steps in the login procedure. If there are, delete them.
Verify that the in-session response is not a large one, and - if possible - does not include tracked parameters or cookies. If necessary, add one or more steps till you reach a smaller page or one without tracked items.
If you succeeded in selecting an in-session page without tracked parameters or cookies, there is no need for AppScan to check for these each time it logs in. Go to Advanced Configuration > Session Management: Parse In-Session Page, and change the setting to False.
If none of these succeed, you can try to identify an out-of-session pattern instead, and then change the detection method.