Scanner Core

Scanner Core provides a modular framework to define, execute and evaluate probes. Each probe may yield a result which is condensed into a report afterward. Moreover, Scanner Core features several concepts to analyze the results by computing an aggregated score based on rating influencers and running guideline checks.

Installation

In order to compile and use Scanner-Core, you need to have Java 11 and Maven 3 installed. On Ubuntu you can install both by running:

$ sudo apt install openjdk-11-jdk maven

If you have your environment configured properly, you can build Scanner-Core as follows:

$ git clone https://github.com/tls-attacker/Scanner-Core.git
$ cd Scanner-Core
$ mvn clean install

If you would like to use this project as a dependency, you may also use the precompiled builds available at Maven Central. To include Scanner-Core into your project, add the following section to your projects pom.xml, replacing VERSION_HERE with the most recent release version:

<dependency>
    <groupId>de.rub.nds</groupId>
    <artifactId>scanner-core</artifactId>
    <version>VERSION_HERE</version>
</dependency>

Concepts

Probes

A probe represents a task to execute which yields a result. The result is then later combined with the results of other probes into a fully fledged scan report. Each probe extends the ScannerProbe abstract base class which defines several abstract methods to be overridden:

• getRequirements - Returns a requirement which needs to be fulfilled for this probe to be executed. Several requirements can be found in the de.rub.nds.scanner.core.probe.requirements package.
• adjustConfig - Performs any preliminary steps before probe execution. Usually this method is used to check for certain features in the scan report.
• executeTest - Executes the probe.
• merge - Implements the logic on how to merge the results obtained by the probes with the scan report.

Hint: Methods are listed by their lifecycle order.

In addition to active probes, Scanner-Core implements the concept of AfterProbes. AfterProbes are being executed once all active probes have been successfully executed or no more can be executed due to missing requirements, and serve the purpose of analyzing the scan report in greater detail.

Guidelines

A guideline is a list of checks which are executed upon the scan report once all probes have been executed. It may be used to highlight certain analyzed properties in the final scan report. Guidelines (as of now) require manual invocation by the calling project and are not being executed as part of ThreadedScanJobExecutor. Related classes can be found in the de.rub.nds.scanner.core.guideline package.

Rating

The concept of rating is used to condense the report into a single, comparable integer score and give the user recommendations on how to increase the score. Similar to guidelines, as of now, rating needs to be invoked by the calling project and is not part of the ThreadedScanJobExecutor class. Related classes can be found in the de.rub.nds.scanner.core.report.rating package.