Test options

General

Use adaptive testing

AppScan can send many thousands of tests to a site. However, in order to reduce scan time, it can send preliminary tests that intelligently determine which are the appropriate tests to send and which can be dispensed with. This is "adaptive testing" and it can greatly reduce scan time, without sacrificing efficiency.

Clear this check box if you want AppScan to send all its tests to the site.

Allow multiphase scanning

AppScan analyzes responses to the tests that it sends your application. From this analysis, AppScan frequently discovers additional content, such as links that were invisible on the first "phase" of the scan. Multiphase scanning enables AppScan to repeat the Explore and Test stages on this newly detected content. (The additional phase is usually shorter, as it involves the new links only.)

Multiphase scanning is configured by default to allow a maximum of 4 scan phases.

Note that multiphase scanning applies only when you run a full scan. If you use the Explore Only and Test Only functions, the result will be a single-phase scan.

By default, AppScan tests multiple variants per issue to ensure comprehensive vulnerability detection. To optimize scan time, you can enable this option that limits AppScan to testing only until the first variant of an issue is found. While this reduces scan time, it's important to be aware that some vulnerabilities with different variations might be missed.

Analyze test responses for issues beyond the specific test scope

When selected, AppScan analyzes each test response for additional security issues over-and-above the specific issue tested for. Deselect this option if the application is very large, or if scans produce a large number of false-positive results.

By default, AppScan analyzes only one variant for broader issue types to improve efficiency and avoid redundancy. To analyze more variants, deselect this option, but note that doing so will increase the scan time.

Include all variants of issues beyond the specific test scope

(Active only if previous check box is selected.) When selected, AppScan analyzes all variants of each issue over-and-above the specific issue tested for; when deselected, only one variant per issue is analyzed. Selecting this check box is not usually necessary, and can significantly increase scan time.

Report vulnerable components

3rd-party components in your code are identified during the Explore stage and shown in Data view.

When this option is selected (default), AppScan will report known vulnerabilities in those components in Issues view, and suggest updates. For more details, see Components.

To ensure that AppScan uses the latest version of the vulnerable component database, you can download the latest updates and then import it using the Import file option under Tools > Options. For more details, refer to the Import file section.

Login/Logout tests

Send tests on login pages

It is recommended to allow AppScan to test login pages, unless your application locks out users who provide illegal input, or the application flow would be altered by AppScan testing them.

Do not send session identifiers when testing login pages

Active only if "Send tests on login pages" checkbox is selected. It is recommended to leave this checkbox selected, as session identifiers could limit test success when testing login pages. Clear it only if you are sure that valid session tokens are necessary to test your login pages.

Note that even when this checkbox is selected, some tests are still sent with session identifiers to prevent false positive results.

Non-vulnerables

Save non-vulnerables information

During a scan, AppScan sends many thousands of test variants to the site it is testing. The responses to many of these indicate that they do not pose a security threat of any kind, and by default AppScan discards all these "non-vulnerable" results, considerably reducing the volume of the result data.

Select this checkbox to configure AppScan to save all non-vulnerable test variants if you want to review them.

For more information, see Non-vulnerables.