Revalidate penetration test findings
After you remediate a vulnerability, use AWS Security Agent to revalidate the finding and confirm whether it is still exploitable. Revalidation re-tests one or more existing findings without running a full penetration test. You get a fast answer on whether your fix worked.
During revalidation, AWS Security Agent authenticates to your application and re-runs the validation steps for each selected finding. It does not rediscover new vulnerabilities or test other parts of your application. This makes revalidation faster and more focused than a full penetration test.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, ensure you have:
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A completed penetration test with at least one finding
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Access to the Agent Space that contains the finding
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A target application that is reachable with the current authentication configuration of the penetration test
Select findings to revalidate
Choose one or more findings from a completed penetration test run:
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Log in to the AWS Security Agent web application.
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Open the penetration test run that contains the findings you want to revalidate.
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In the findings panel, choose Multiselect findings for revalidation.
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Select the check box next to each finding you want to revalidate. The findings you select are listed as you add them.
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Choose Revalidate findings.
Before you revalidate
Revalidate a finding after you deploy a fix to the environment the original test ran against. Revalidation re-tests the same target, so the fix must be live for the result to be accurate.
Interpret revalidation results
Revalidation runs as its own job and does not change the original finding. For each finding, revalidation reports whether AWS Security Agent could reproduce the vulnerability.
| Result | What it means |
|---|---|
|
Active |
AWS Security Agent reproduced the vulnerability. The finding is still exploitable and needs further remediation. |
|
Resolved |
AWS Security Agent could not reproduce the vulnerability during revalidation. |
Trace revalidation history
Revalidation keeps the link between a finding and the runs that re-tested it, so you can trace remediation over time.
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From a revalidation job, choose Original finding to open the finding it re-tested.
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From a finding, view its Revalidation jobs to see each time it was revalidated and the result.
A revalidation run appears in your run history with a type of Revalidation, which distinguishes it from a full penetration test.
Next steps
After revalidation, consider these next steps:
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Revalidate a finding again after each remediation attempt until its status is Resolved.
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Run a full penetration test for broad changes to your application instead of revalidating individual findings. For details, see Create a penetration test.
