How to change the scan speed?

Last updated: June 19, 2025

What This Article Covers

This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to adjust the scan speed for your targets within the Astra dashboard. It explains how this setting impacts the number of requests sent during a scan and how to customize it for optimal performance and system stability.

Who Should Read This

This article is for Astra users who need to control the rate at which vulnerability scans interact with their target applications, particularly those concerned about system performance or potential disruptions during scanning.

Why This Matters

Adjusting the scan speed is crucial for optimizing the balance between scan efficiency and the impact on your target system's performance. Customizing this setting allows you to prevent system overload, minimize potential disruptions, and tailor the scanning process to your infrastructure's capacity, ensuring a smooth and effective vulnerability assessment.

Adjusting Scan Speed for Your Targets

Adjusting the scan speed allows you to control the number of requests per second sent to your targets during a scan. This customization ensures flexibility for optimizing performance and minimizing potential disruptions to your systems.

Step 1: Access the Scan Speed Settings

  1. Log in to your Astra dashboard.

  2. Navigate to the Targets Page where you can see the list of all configured targets.

  3. Locate and click on the specific Target that corresponds to the settings you want to adjust. This will take you to the Target Setup Page for that target.

Step 2: Adjust the Scan Speed

Once on the target's settings page, you should see an option to adjust the scan speed. Use the slider or the available options to increase or decrease the scan speed based on your preference.

The custom scan speed option allows you to control the request pace during a scan. Concurrent requests will be sent to your target, with a delay (measured in milliseconds) between each request in a thread.

For example: If you set the delay to 100 milliseconds and enable 5 threads, your system will send 5 requests simultaneously, with each group of 5 requests waiting 100 milliseconds before proceeding to the next batch of requests.

Step 3: Save the Settings

After making the desired adjustments to the scan speed, ensure that you save your settings. You may need to confirm your changes by clicking on "Save Changes".

Need help? Raise a support ticket anytime from your Astra dashboard.