Managing Vulnerabilities with 6Scan

Written by Adam Bryner Thursday, 21 February 2013

By now, you’ve probably already had 6Scan enabled on your website for some time. Chances are you’ve received some sort of notification (SMS, or via Email) that vulnerabilities have been found on your website. Don’t panic, as 6Scan makes resolving these issues easy. As you can see from the screenshot below, I’ve created a test website using an older version of WordPress. 6 vulnerabilities have been found.

Now feels like a good time to mention why you need to keep your scripts/applications updated to the latest version at all times. There’s a few reasons these applications are updated quite often.

1. Release new features and improvements
2. Patch vulnerabilities, and further secure the code

With a subscription to 6Scan (not required) these vulnerabilities can be fixed automatically upon discovery. Otherwise, the free version you simply click each vulnerability and get a detailed explanation of the problem, and how to fix it. See below –

Clicking the ‘Manual Fix’ button opens a popup window that tells you which file to edit, and how to edit it. In the case of this example WordPress installation, upgrading to the latest version would be the best choice rather than manually editing the files. There is also a ‘Technical Details’ link that provides information (if available) about the technical issue related to the vulnerability.

Easy right? That’s it for managing vulnerabilities.