Network Vulnerability Scanner

How Does a Vulnerability Scanner Work?

A network vulnerability scanner uncovers and identifies critical network and host vulnerabilities within your environment. It simulates external attacks and conducts thorough vulnerability assessments, including registry analysis. All environments – including AWS and Azure workloads, web apps, and APIs – can be scanned with Alert Logic.

Alert Logic conducts comprehensive scans across all assets in your deployments:

• For new deployments, Alert Logic automatically sets up default scan schedules tailored to the deployment type, ensuring agent-based, internal network, and external network vulnerability scans are carried out on all assets and ports, except those marked for exclusion.
• For data center deployments, a default discovery scan schedule also is established to detect new assets.
• Customers have full flexibility to schedule specific scans for all or selected assets and ports, giving you control over when critical security checks occur.

With Alert Logic, you can receive instant notifications for threats, changes, and scheduled events in your environment, empowering you to take swift action. Customers can subscribe to both alert-based and scheduled action notifications; for alert-based notifications, easily customize the criteria to focus on critical threats, allowing you to prioritize high-risk situations and respond effectively.

Types of available network scans

• Agent-based: Improves vulnerability assessment by providing authenticated network scanning without the need for credential management. It reduces network traffic and minimizes impact, enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and usability in Alert Logic’s vulnerability scanning. It also significantly boosts the reliability and precision of scan results.
• Internal Network: Runs from an Alert Logic appliance in your environment, these scans can be done without credentials (unauthenticated) or with credentials (authenticated). Without credentials, your network is scanned by bypassing host login and utilizing exposed ports, protocols, and services to detect vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and default account exposures. With credentials, Alert Logic can access each host on your network, gathering information while conducting thorough vulnerability assessments, including registry setting analysis, identifying misconfigurations, and detecting missing patches.
• External Network: Runs from the Alert Logic data centers targeting your internet-facing environment, this scan simulates external attacks to uncover vulnerabilities and potential risks posed by these threats.
• Asset Discovery: Uncovers assets and configurations, providing essential insights so you can make informed decisions on what to protect and the level of protection required. Achieve full visibility into all assets and environments for enhanced asset management and improved security outcomes.
• PCI Scanning: As a PCI ASV, our scans meeting the requirements of PCI DSS 4.0, 11.3: “Perform network vulnerability scans by an ASV at least quarterly or after any significant network change” (includes 11.3.1, 11.3.2).