How can a web vulnerability scan be performed externally? Will it use up all my bandwidth?

Acunetix WVS is designed to scan a web application from an external approach to assess the security level of a web application. The concept of an external approach is to replicate a hacker’s methodology, which is to attempt to penetrate a website using http and https protocols through their respective ports.

The intensity of a scan is by default configured at a setting of 10 parallel connections, which means that Acunetix submits its requests at the same intensity as having 10 users simultaneously browsing your site. This setting however can be decreased accordingly if needed, however it is an optimal figure which works well. For minimal effect on a web server, we also offer the option to have a scan scheduled at any point in which you would know that your server experiences low traffic rates. However, the safest way recommendable to test a site is to create a “dummy” of it in a test environment which would ensure that no bandwidth is taken up from your live site. It’s good to add however, that it is rare to receive reports about scans disrupting website activity. Since all web applications are different in their nature, it is good to specify that predicted behaviors are all different.