Active View - Assets

Overview

Fortra VM Active View gives you a comprehensive, aggregate health assessment of your environment. It helps to identify your vulnerabilities and optimize remediation resources.

The Active View System Health Assets page is the central location for managing assets in your environment. It is used throughout Fortra VM to show asset scan results and is typically filtered based on your selected asset details.

Assets page components

Frontline VM Active View System Health Assets page

Ref. Description
1 Opens the Build Report dialog.
See related: Create a Report
2 Options to search your assets.
See related: Find Information in Fortra VM
3 Sorts the list.
4 Actions you can take with selected assets:
  • Add comment
  • Add label
  • Rescan as selected - Includes options to Rescan now (rerun the asset’s existing scan) and Rescan as … (create a new scan).
  • More - Includes the following options:

    • Set hidden - Temporarily removes an asset from view without deleting its historical data. This option is ideal when you want to keep the asset’s history but exclude it from visibility. When an asset is hidden, its ranking will not be calculated into the Security GPA.

      You can choose to either Hide this instance only or Hide this and future instances. Both options will remove the asset from view and from the Security GPA calculation, but if you select Hide this instance only and the asset appears in a future scan, it will appear again in Active View. This may be desirable if the asset and its vulnerabilities are not important for your organization currently, but you want to review it again in the future.

    • Merge assets - Available when you select two or more assets. Use this option when you have confirmed that separate entries represent the same asset and should appear as one entry. See Asset Merge Form for details. Automatic merging, when available and enabled, uses the eligibility checks described under Automatically merge duplicate assets.

    • Set OS - Use this option to change the OS for an asset if the automatically identified operating system is incorrect.

    • Set asset type - Use this option to change the asset type for an asset if the automatically identified asset type is incorrect.

    • Set out of scope (PCI scans only) - Use this option to set an asset out of scope for reporting. After choosing this option, select True, and then select one of the following reasons from the list:

      • IP Address implements physical or logical segmentation - The IP address is separated from the cardholder data environment and thus does not need to be in scope.

      • IP Address is no longer owned or leased

      • IP Address was included in scope by mistake

    • Remove label - Removes labels associated with the asset.

    • Set retired - Permanently removes an asset that is no longer part of your network.

      IMPORTANT: Retiring an asset is irreversible and deletes all historical data. To hide the asset but keep its history, select Set hidden instead.

    • Create asset group - After selecting two or more assets, selecting this option opens the New Asset Group page where you can create an asset group and include the selected assets in it.

TIP: Right-click an asset in the asset list to see these options.
5 Asset list (each entry includes its Security GPA rating, asset name [select to view the asset’s page], IP address, status, OS type, and system type).
TIP: Hover over the graph to see, for example, how many medium vulnerabilities an asset has.
6 Icons provide visual statuses for each asset. See the full list below. You can also view this list in Fortra VM by selecting > Key to icons.
IconStatus
Above Active Risk threshold
Vulnerable to proven exploit(s)
Malware infected
Antivirus missing
Partially scanned
Retired
Compromised
Has no notes
Has asset notes
Has vuln notes
Has asset and vuln notes
Using agent
Container
Hidden
Named asset
Internal
External

Automatically merge duplicate assets

If available for your account, Automatically merge duplicate assets controls whether eligible VM scan processing can merge duplicate assets in the current Active View.

Fortra VM automatically combines duplicate asset records only when device names and other identifying information together show that they represent the same device. If the information conflicts or does not clearly establish a match, the records remain separate.

Automatic merging does not combine internal assets with external assets, or assets specified as different hostnames in the scan targets. When exclusive IP matching is enabled, only records with the same IP address can automatically merge.

For example, two entries for one machine may merge when independent identity and name evidence confirms that they represent the same machine. Two machines with a cloned identifier and different names remain separate.

Configure automatic merging

  1. Select the account, then select Scan Settings > Settings.

  2. Under Matching and Trending, locate Automatically merge duplicate assets. If the control is unavailable, contact your account administrator or Fortra Support to verify availability.

  3. Turn the option ON or OFF.

  4. Select Save.

  5. Reload the page and confirm that your selection was saved.

NOTE: Saving does not immediately clean up all historical duplicates. Turning the option OFF prevents future automatic merges; it does not undo completed merges.

Review automatic merge results

After a scan completes and its results appear in Active View, check whether duplicate asset entries have been combined. Select an asset name to review its details and history.

Each completed automatic merge is recorded in the audit log as an Auto Merge Assets event. These events are included in Account Activity reports that include Scan Results Management events.

Scans excluded from Active View do not trigger automatic merging. Some duplicates may remain because there is insufficient or conflicting information, and one scan may not resolve every duplicate.

If an asset’s history appears incorrect, contact Fortra Support. Include the account name, affected asset names and IP addresses, and relevant scan names and dates.

See related: Configure Scan Results Settings and Understand Scan Activity.

Asset Merge Form

When you attempt to merge an internal asset with an external asset, a message indicates that assets in different locations cannot be merged.

Assets scanned by different methods, such as IP scanning and hostname scanning, also display a warning that they cannot be merged. In these cases, Fortra VM indicates that a merge was attempted rather than reporting a successful merge.