Configuring Vulnerability Scans for Web Applications

Configuration of vulnerability scans for web applications has the following steps:

Step 1: Activating the Scan your web application for vulnerabilities plan item.
Step 2: Configuring the security controls of the target application.
Step 3: Activating the Scan your web application for vulnerabilities configurations security control.

Authentication modes

There are two authentication modes:

Without authentication, for black box testing.
With authentication, highly recommended for deeper security scanning to identify more security risks.

Prerequisites

Slack integration to receive notifications.
Deployment-based scanning to trigger runtime scanning tools when a new code deployment is detected.
Step 1: Plan item activation

Select Security Plans from the left menu, scroll to a plan that includes DAST scanning, and then click View Plan.
Scroll to Web Application Security and click Jit -013 Scan you web application for vulnerabilities.
Click Activate to run a web application scanner on schedule.
To configure settings, click Activated and then click Configure to display the Configure Security Control dialog box.

Step 2: Configuring Security Controls

Setting the target

Field	Description
Application name	Name of the application that is scanned.
Target URL	The URL route of the application.
(Optional) Exclude URLs	URLs that are not scanned. For example, Logout. We recommend excluding Logout so that Jit scanning remains continually connected.
API domain	The base URL where the API is hosted, serving as the entry point for making API requests.
Enable authentication	We recommend enabling this option for enhanced security scanning. See Configuration with authentication below.

Setting the scanning trigger

Field	Description
Scan Daily	ZAP scans your application daily.
Scan on deployment	Jit scans your application when a deployment event is detected in your GitHub organization.
Environment name	The environment defined in the deployment YAML on Github actions. Jit needs an exact match between the environment name defined in Jit and in Github Actions to trigger a scan. See Deployment-based Scanning.

Configuration with authentication

Check Enable authentication. There are four types of authentication:

Authentication Type	Fields	Description
Form-based authentication	Login URL	Login URL for authentication.
	Username	Username to be authenticated.
	Password	Password to be authenticated.
	Enable Selectors Configuration	Check to enable enhanced authentication using the username and password selectors that are derived from the source of the Login's web page. When unchecked, Jit searches for common selectors. See Configuring authentication using selectors below.
Local storage	Local Storage Item Key	The specific identifier used in the Web Storage API for storing and retrieving data in the web browser's local storage.
	Local Storage Item Value	The actual information that is stored and retrieved using a specific key.
	Cookie value	Value of the cookie used for authentication.
Bearer token header	Value	The value of the bearer token header consisting of the word Bearer followed by a space and then the actual token.

Configuring authentication using selectors

Check Enable Selectors Configuration.
To complete the Username Field Selector and Password Field Selector fields, go to your application's website and open the Developer Tools and then use the Inspect Element to find the matching selectors for the Username and Password.
For example:
Copy the text into the Username Field Selector and Password Field Selector fields.

Step 3: Activate the Scan your web application for vulnerabilities security control

Click Activate. Jit creates a header based on your configurations and shares the authentication information with ZAP. The header is integrated by ZAP and used to authenticate each page included in the scan. Jit then generates security findings.