Master Xray, X-Scan, AppScan, AWVS, and Nessus: A Complete Vulnerability Scanning Guide

Vulnerability scanning is the process of detecting security weaknesses in remote or local computer systems based on vulnerability databases.

During scanning, various tools are commonly used; you should be familiar with them.

Xray

Xray is a essential tool for penetration testing, supporting Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is not open source; you download the binary from the GitHub releases. Before use, read and accept the license.

Quick usage examples:

xray webscan --basic-crawler http://example.com --html-output vuln.html

xray webscan --listen 127.0.0.1:7777 --html-output proxy.html

xray webscan --url http://example.com/?a=b --html-output single-url.html

You can specify plugins, for example:

xray webscan --plugins cmd-injection,sqldet --url http://example.com

Output results to files:

xray webscan --url http://example.com/?a=b --text-output result.txt --json-output result.json --html-output report.html

X-Scan

X-Scan is a popular free Chinese comprehensive scanner, available as a portable green software with both GUI and CLI, supporting Chinese and English interfaces.

Project address: https://github.com/XTeam-Wing/X-Scan

AppScan

AppScan, developed by IBM, is a web security scanning tool that uses crawlers to perform penetration testing, automatically scanning web pages and providing reports and remediation suggestions.

AWVS (Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner)

AWVS is a well‑known web vulnerability scanner that crawls websites to detect common security flaws. It offers a Standard Edition for individuals and small businesses and an Enterprise Edition for larger organizations.

Official site: https://www.acunetix.com

Nessus

Nessus is the world’s most widely used system vulnerability scanner, offering a free Essentials version, frequent updates, and an easy‑to‑use interface.

To use Nessus, obtain an activation code from the official website, download the appropriate package, install, enter the activation code, set a username and password, and then add scan targets.