Working with scans

Scans enable you to discover potential issues on the assets in your environment. You can use various vulnerability management systems such as Qualys, Nessus, and Rapid7 to scan the assets. For the supported endpoint managers, TrueSight Server Automation or TrueSight Network Automation, you can use the same procedure to scan servers and network devices (assets) and then import a scan file into Automation Console.

After scanning the assets, you can export the scan results from these systems and then import them into TrueSight Automation Console.

An exported scan file collects information about assets (such as servers and network devices) and the vulnerabilities associated with those assets. You can import scan files with assets belonging to the following operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows
• IBM
• HP
• Solaris 
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• SUSE Linux
• CentOS 
• Oracle Enterprise Linux 

Errata are not supported for CentOS, so vulnerabilities cannot be automatically mapped to the remediation content. 

When a vulnerability scan is imported into Automation Console, assets included in the scan are automatically mapped to endpoints managed by the underlying endpoint manager, TrueSight Server Automation. The automatic asset mapping process matches the Domain Name Server (DNS) and then the IP address of an asset in a vulnerability scan to an endpoint managed in TrueSight Server Automation.

You can remediate these assets against the vulnerabilities using Automation Console. Currently, you can import a scan file up to 1 GB.

This topic describes prerequisites for importing scans, and a few considerations that you need to keep in mind before you import.

Prerequisites for importing scans

Before importing a scan, make sure that you have exported scan results from the vulnerability management system. 

For information about supported versions of the scanning systems, see System-requirements.

The exported file must meet the following requirements:

Importing a scan file manually

On the Manage > Import page, click Import Scan, and perform the following steps:

1. Select the vulnerability management vendor.

2. Attach the scan file based on the selected vendor.

   Best practice

   Import files larger than 400 MB from a local area network with a latency of less than 50 milliseconds as large scans from remote networks might not succeed. You can also import a compressed file (single file only).

   Is there a file size limit for importing a scan file?

   Yes. You can import files up to 1 GB.

3. To apply filters while importing data from a scan file, do the following:
   
   1. Select the operating systems.
      When you select Others, the scan file includes the scanning results for the assets of various operating systems such as AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, CentOS, SUSE, Ubuntu, Debian, and Oracle Linux ULN. If you are importing a vulnerability scan file for the TrueSight Network Automation endpoint manager, select Others.

   2. Select one or more vulnerability severity options.
      

      Severity levels

      Qualys, Nessus, and Rapid7 use different scoring for severity levels.

      • Qualys uses scores of 1-5.
      • Nessus uses scores of 0-4.
      • Rapid7 uses scores of 1-10.

      To maintain consistency, BMC increases the Nessus severity levels by one (so they become 1-5) and maps the ten Rapid7 severity levels to five levels. 

   3. Specify any one of the following IP addresses in the Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) format:
      • Single IP address. Example: 168.19.13.12/24
      • Comma-separated multiple IP addresses. Example: 168.19.13.12/24,10.25.24.12/12

      • A combination of the above formats. Example: 168.19.13.12/24, 168.19.13.12/32,10.25.24.12/12

        Important

        Data is imported from the scan file only for servers belonging to the specified IP address range. The default value is 0.0.0.0/0, which imports data for all servers from the scan file.

4. Click Import.
   After the import is complete, a message confirms that the scan was imported and informs how many assets were automatically mapped to endpoints. To search for a scan file, enter the scan file name in the search field and the results that match the search term are displayed. 

Understanding the scan results

• If you have configured the Tenable.sc connector, the Import page displays the scan results that are automatically imported from the Tenable.sc instances.
• The scan results include the vulnerability detection date. If you have configured the Tenable.sc connector, the scan results display the vulnerability detection date as follows:
  • For fresh installations, the detection date indicates when the vulnerability is first seen in Tenable.
  • For upgrades, the detection date for an existing vulnerability indicates when the vulnerability is posted in TrueSight Automation Console.
• In a scan file, the vulnerability detection date indicates the date the scan was first conducted.
• The scan results also include the last observed date of a vulnerability. If you have configured the Tenable.sc connector, the scan results display the last observed date of the vulnerability as follows:
  • For fresh installations, the last observed date indicates when the vulnerability instance is last seen in Tenable.
  • For upgrades, the last observed date for an existing vulnerability instance indicates when the vulnerability is first seen in Tenable.
• In a scan file, the last observed date of a vulnerability indicates the date of the latest conducted scan.
• When you import scan results for vulnerabilities on CentOS assets, the vulnerabilities are not automatically mapped to the remediation content. You must manually map vulnerabilities with the remediation content later to perform remediation operations. 
• If you import multiple scan files one after another, the Scanned Assets page and Import page show all the data that you import, including the results of the most recent import. When you import a scan file, the asset and vulnerability information is added to any information that is already imported. The operating system is defined in the scan file. For example, if an AIX asset is defined as Linux in a Nessus scanning file, the asset shows Linux as the operating system. If the same asset is defined as AIX in a scan file from Qualys, then when you import the scan file, the latest data is considered.

Importing the same scan file more than once

If you need to import the same scan file more than once, perform the following steps:

1. 
   

   • For Qualys and Rapid7, scan files are identified by a unique <SCAN> tag within the XML file. If you are using those vulnerability management tools and you want to import the same scan more than once, you must modify the value of the <SCAN> tag.

     Change the name of each scan to avoid confusion.

   • For Nessus, you must edit the existing .nessus file and enter a new name value for the <Report> tag. For example, in a tag such as <Report name="ProdAdmins_Linux" xmlns:cm="http://www.nessus.org/cm">, the new name value could be, name="NewProdAdmins_Linux"

     If the imported scans do not include a time zone, which time zone is considered?

     If no time zone is specified, it is the browser's time zone.

Deleting a scan file

On the Manage > Import page, click Action > Remove for a file.

If the scan file size is large, it may take some time for deletion. 

Consult the following table for the impact of deleting a scan file on each of the entities in Automation Console.

Sharing a scan file

1. On the Manage > Import page, click Action > Share for the file that you want to share with security groups.
2. From the Security Groups list, select the required groups to share the scan file. You can use the search filter to quickly locate the required groups.
3. Click Share.

The names of security groups with whom the file is shared are displayed under the Shared with Security Groups column. You can share a scan file that you have imported with one or more security groups. However, users of these security groups cannot delete or further share this scan file.You can use the same option to stop sharing the file or share it with different security groups.

• To stop the sharing, click Clear in the Security Groups list and click Share.
• To share the file with additional or different security groups, select the required groups from the Security Groups list and click Share. 
• To stop sharing the file with a specific security group, click Delete for the corresponding security group.
  
  

Importing a Nessus scan file automatically

You can integrate TrueSight Automation Consolewith TrueSight Orchestration to automatically import scan files from the Nessus vulnerability scanning system. To understand and enable auto-import of Nessus scan files, see Use-case-Automatically-importing-vulnerability-scan-files.