Configuring Network Scanning

Acunetix can be configured to use OpenVAS to perform network scans of the Targets configured in Acunetix. When Acunetix detects a network vulnerability, it will submit the vulnerability to your OpenVAS system.

This allows the network engineering team to obtain visibility of these detected network issues by having them integrated into the rest of their network issue workflow in a single centralized location, avoiding the disjointed communications and confusion typically encountered when team members use unmanaged channels such as email, chat, and stand-alone documents for these purposes.

This article explains how to enable Acunetix to connect to OpenVAS.

Network scanning

Network Scanning looks for many different network vulnerabilities, including:

• Open ports and exposed services such as FTP, SSH, database servers, etc. These are common configuration issues that lead to major data breaches, especially if coupled with weak passwords.
• Missing security patches for your network devices, web servers, or operating systems. Missing patches or late patching may expose your infrastructure to dangerous attacks on any operating system your infrastructure may be running.
• Insecure, outdated, or reverse-engineered SSL/TLS ciphers.

Prerequisite

• Installation of OpenVAS to allow Acunetix to use the Network Scanner. For instructions, refer to Installing Network Scanning (OpenVAS).

Connecting to OpenVAS

After installing Network Scanning (OpenVAS), follow the instructions below to enable Acunetix to connect to OpenVAS.

How to enable Acunetix to connect to OpenVAS 

1. Log in to Acunetix.
2. Select Network Scanner from the side menu.
3. Click Enable.
4. Set the Address field to the IP Address of the OpenVAS machine (or "127.0.0.1" if OpenVAS and Acunetix are on the same machine).
5. Set the Port field to 9390 (if using the OMP protocol) or 22 (if using the SSH protocol).
6. Set the Username field to admin
7. Set the Password field to the password of the OpenVAS Administrator which was auto-created during the installation of your OpenVAS system.
8. Set the Protocol field to OMP or SSH.
9. Click Save.