Application Scanning Use Cases
Application Scanning tests custom web applications for exploitable vulnerabilities. Below are common scenarios and how to configure scanning for each.
Custom Web Application Testing
Most web application vulnerabilities are specific to the application’s code and configuration. Generic vulnerability scanners that check for known CVEs miss these issues entirely.
The challenge: Your development team ships custom code regularly. Each release can introduce vulnerabilities like SQL injection, XSS, or SSRF that are unique to your application logic.
How Application Scanning helps: The scanner crawls your application to discover all inputs and endpoints, then fuzzes each one with targeted payloads. Because it tests the running application, it catches vulnerabilities that static analysis and dependency scanning miss, such as logic flaws, injection points in custom code, and misconfigurations in the deployed environment.
Single-Page Application Security
Modern SPAs built with React, Angular, Vue, and similar frameworks present unique challenges for security scanners. Most of the application logic runs in the browser, routes are managed client-side, and content is loaded dynamically.
The challenge: Traditional crawlers that parse HTML for links miss the majority of SPA functionality. Client-side routing, AJAX calls, and DOM manipulation create a rich attack surface that is invisible to simple HTTP-based scanners.
How Application Scanning helps: The headless Chrome crawler executes JavaScript, interacts with the DOM, and navigates client-side routes just like a real browser. Graph-based state modeling discovers functionality hidden behind user interactions, ensuring comprehensive coverage of SPAs.
Authenticated Area Testing
The most sensitive parts of web applications are typically behind authentication: admin panels, user dashboards, account settings, and data management interfaces. Testing only the public-facing surface leaves the highest-risk areas unexamined.
The challenge: Security scanners need valid credentials and the ability to maintain an authenticated session throughout the scan. Many applications use complex login flows with multi-factor authentication, CAPTCHAs, or custom authentication mechanisms.
How Application Scanning helps: Application Scanning supports multiple authentication methods including Basic Access Authentication, Recorded Login sessions, and Recorded Crawling. Recorded Login captures your actual login sequence so the scanner can replay it to maintain authenticated access throughout the scan.
Pre-Release Security Validation
Catching vulnerabilities before they reach production is significantly less expensive and risky than finding them after deployment. Application Scanning can be integrated into your release process to validate security before each deployment.
The challenge: Security testing is often treated as an afterthought, happening only during periodic audits or penetration tests. By the time vulnerabilities are found, the code has been in production for weeks or months.
How Application Scanning helps: Schedule scans to run automatically on your staging environment before each release. Trigger scans via the API as part of your CI/CD pipeline. Address findings before code reaches production, reducing remediation costs and exposure time.
Regulatory Compliance Testing
Many compliance frameworks require regular dynamic security testing of web applications. Application Scanning provides documented, repeatable testing with detailed findings that support compliance reporting.
The challenge: Manual penetration testing is expensive and infrequent. Compliance auditors need evidence of regular, systematic security testing.
How Application Scanning helps: Automated scans run on configurable schedules, producing detailed reports with proof-of-concept evidence for each finding. Scan history provides an audit trail demonstrating continuous security testing activity.
Third-Party Application Assessment
Organizations that rely on third-party web applications hosted on their infrastructure can use Application Scanning to assess those applications for vulnerabilities.
The challenge: You do not control the code of third-party applications, but you are responsible for the security of your infrastructure and the data those applications handle.
How Application Scanning helps: Application Scanning tests the running application without requiring source code access. It can identify vulnerabilities in third-party applications that you can mitigate through WAF rules, network controls, or vendor escalation.
Next Steps
- Getting Started — Set up your first application scan
- Authentication — Configure scanning behind login pages
- Scan Profiles — Create reusable scan configurations