Vanguard: Automated Web Vulnerability Scanner & Reconnaissance Engine 🛡️

Vanguard is an enterprise-grade, modular command-line web application security scanner designed for ethical hackers, penetration testers, and security engineers. It autonomously crawls target domains, performs comprehensive HTTP security header audits, and executes multi-vector vulnerability checks—including Cross-Site Scripting (Reflected XSS), SQL Injection (SQLi), Local File Inclusion (LFI), OS Command Injection, Server-Side Template Injection (SSTI), and missing Anti-CSRF protections—generating an interactive, responsive HTML vulnerability report.

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📸 Report Dashboard Preview

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✨ Key Features & Capabilities

• 🌐 Autonomous Target Crawling: Recursively crawls web domains up to configurable depths, extracting internal endpoints, query parameters, and HTML forms.
• 🔒 HTTP Security Header Audit: Inspects HTTP response headers for missing security controls (Content-Security-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options) and identifies dangerous server technology version disclosures.
• ⚔️ Multi-Vector Vulnerability Detection:
  • Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): Parameter and form injection payloads with DOM reflection verification.
  • SQL Injection (SQLi): Multi-database driver error signature checks (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MSSQL).
  • Local File Inclusion (LFI): Traversal payloads auditing direct file read exposures (/etc/passwd, win.ini).
  • OS Command Injection: Shell operator auditing for arbitrary system code execution vectors.
  • Server-Side Template Injection (SSTI): Dynamic template evaluation checks (Jinja2, Twig, Smarty).
  • Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF): Automated inspection of state-changing forms for missing anti-CSRF token parameters.
• 📄 Interactive HTML Reporting: Exports structured, styled HTML audit reports featuring CVSS risk scores, vulnerable URL endpoints, exact payload triggers, and remediation guidance.

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🎯 Vulnerability Audit Scope

Vulnerability Class	OWASP Top 10 Mapping	Detection Mechanism
SQL Injection (SQLi)	A03:2021 - Injection	Syntax injection & database error signature monitoring
Reflected XSS	A03:2021 - Injection	Reflection verification of unescaped HTML/JS payloads
Local File Inclusion (LFI)	A01:2021 - Broken Access Control	Path traversal checks for sensitive system file disclosures
OS Command Injection	A03:2021 - Injection	Command operator execution testing in parameter inputs
SSTI	A03:2021 - Injection	Evaluation testing of template expression syntax
CSRF Safeguards	A01:2021 - Broken Access Control	Anti-CSRF token verification on state-changing HTML forms
Security Headers	A05:2021 - Security Misconfiguration	Verification of missing defensive HTTP headers & version leaks

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📥 Detailed Download & Installation Guide

Prerequisites

Before installing Vanguard, ensure your system has Python 3.8+ and git installed.

On Linux (Ubuntu / Debian / Kali Linux):

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y python3 python3-pip python3-venv git

On macOS:

brew install python git

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Option 1: Downloading via Git (Recommended)

Open your terminal and execute the following commands step-by-step:

# 1. Clone the GitHub repository
git clone https://github.com/sudonishant/vanguard-scanner.git

# 2. Navigate into the project directory
cd vanguard-scanner

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Option 2: Manual Download (ZIP Archive)

If you don't have git installed:

1. Download the ZIP file directly: vanguard-scanner main.zip
2. Extract the archive and open your terminal inside the extracted vanguard-scanner-main directory:

cd path/to/vanguard-scanner-main

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⚙️ Environment Setup & Dependency Installation

To prevent dependency conflicts with your system's global Python environment (avoiding externally-managed-environment errors), set up a virtual environment:

Step 1: Create a Virtual Environment

python3 -m venv venv

Step 2: Activate the Virtual Environment

• Linux / macOS (Bash/Zsh):

  source venv/bin/activate

• Windows (PowerShell):

  .\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

• Windows (Command Prompt):

  venv\Scripts\activate.bat

(Once activated, your terminal prompt will show (venv) at the beginning).

Step 3: Upgrade Pip & Install Dependencies

pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

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💻 How to Run Vanguard Scanner

1. Verify Installation

Check that the scanner CLI is ready by printing the help menu:

python vanguard.py --help

2. Run a Vulnerability Audit

Execute a scan against your target URL and export an interactive HTML report:

python vanguard.py https://example.com -o audit_report.html

3. Open & View the Report

Once completed, open the generated audit_report.html file in your preferred web browser:

• Linux: xdg-open audit_report.html
• macOS: open audit_report.html
• Windows: start audit_report.html

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⚙️ CLI Reference & Flags

positional arguments:
  target                Target URL to audit (e.g. https://example.com)

options:
  -h, --help            Show help message and exit
  -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
                        Output HTML audit report path (default: vulnerability_report.html)
  -d DEPTH, --depth DEPTH
                        Maximum link crawl depth (default: 2)
  --timeout TIMEOUT     HTTP request timeout in seconds (default: 5)

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📖 Extended Troubleshooting & Setup Notes

For advanced debugging (such as fixing BeautifulSoup parsing limits or network timeouts), read the full SETUP_GUIDE.md.

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⚖️ Legal & Ethical Disclaimer

Important

Vanguard is strictly designed for legal, ethical security assessments and educational purposes. Scanning targets without explicit prior written authorization from the owner is illegal and violates security policies. The developer assumes no liability for unauthorized usage.

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📜 License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.