Performing a Malware Scan

Acunetix On-Premises can work in conjunction with AntiVirus engines to check for malware on your site. The default engine used is the Windows Defender AntiVirus service. As an alternative, Acunetix On-Premises can also interface with ClamAV, a popular open-source antivirus product. This guide shows you how to configure Acunetix On-Premises to perform a malware scan.

Step 1: Install and configure an AntiVirus service for your operating system

The first step is to install malware scanning on the machine where you have installed Acunetix On-Premises.

• Windows: Windows 8 and above includes the Windows Defender AntiVirus service, which is the default (and recommended) engine. No further installation or configuration is needed in this scenario. 
• Linux: Refer to our guide Installing Malware Scanning on Linux.

Step 2: Prepare a test (proof of concept) website subfolder

In this example we will assume a default installation of Apache on Ubuntu 18.04.3. The test website will be reachable at http://mytestsite/malware/, and this will be our Acunetix Target for testing.

1. Prepare an example website. For this single-page example, here are the contents of /var/www/html/malware/index.html:

2. Add the standard "eicar.com.txt" test malware file to /var/www/html/malware/. You can obtain this from the EICAR website:

• https://www.eicar.org/download-anti-malware-testfile/

Step 3: Run a Malware Scan from Acunetix On-Premises

1. Log in to Acunetix On-Premises.
2. Go to Targets > Add Target.
3. Enter the URL and description of your test website, then click Save.

4. On the Target Settings page, click Scan.

5. In the Choose Scanning Options window, set the Scan Profile to Malware Scan, then click Create Scan.

6. Wait for the scan to complete. The scan result will show you that Windows Defender or ClamAV was used for malware scanning and will show a Malware identified alert if malware is found.