Knowledge Base

Scan Settings:

In the HG PCI portal, you can adjust the scan bandwidth to control the performance and impact of your network scans.

The available bandwidth levels are High, Medium, Medium-low HTTP impact, Low, and Lowest. Each level determines the number of scanners used in parallel, the maximum hosts scanned simultaneously per scanner, the number of concurrent processes per host, and the packet delay between probes.

The bandwidth level you select will affect overall scan performance:

High - Scan performance is optimized for high bandwidth usage, resulting in the fastest possible scan time. The High bandwidth level will employ multiple scanners and high multiples of concurrent probes. While scans run at the High bandwidth level may be faster to complete, they may overload your network and/or its devices. For network scans, this level is recommended when scanning a large number of IP addresses with robust services.

Medium - Scan performance is optimized for medium bandwidth usage and fast scan processing of HTTP hosts (web servers). This level is the recommended setting.

Medium-low HTTP impact - Scan performance is optimized for medium bandwidth usage and low impact scanning of HTTP hosts (web servers).

Low - Scan performance is optimized for low bandwidth usage and low impact scanning of HTTP hosts (web servers).

Lowest - Scan performance is optimized for the lowest possible bandwidth usage and low impact scanning of HTTP hosts (web servers).

To configure the scan bandwidth in the Qualys PCI portal, navigate to the scan settings and select the desired bandwidth level based on your network’s capacity and the urgency of the scan. It’s important to choose a level that balances scan performance with the potential load on your network devices to avoid disruptions.

Note: The PCI compliance service continuously updates its scanning technology to ensure the best scan performance. For the High level, the number of scanners used may be adjusted over time.