Finding Refresh: Asset Not Reached – Bitsight Knowledge Base

February 3, 2023: Updated to improve clarity.
March 15, 2022: Published.

Overview

“Refreshed - Asset Not Reached” is one of the possible statuses that may return for a finding after a user-requested refresh. It indicates that we are unable to reach an asset or unable to locate new information to update the associated finding. If you receive this status, additional information is provided in the finding details section to clarify what happened.

We can’t guarantee visibility into every record associated with a company. External factors, such as firewall configurations and site availability, impact our ability to update findings.

If we are unable to scan an asset to update a finding, the previously captured finding will continue to impact ratings until its lifetime is complete. To learn more about lifetimes, see What is a Finding Lifetime?

Remediations that Return “Asset Not Reached”

This status is expected for certain remediations. If you receive the “Refreshed - Asset Not Reached” status outside of the examples provided in the table below, confirm that the asset is reachable, not slow to respond, and our scans are not blocked (see Troubleshooting).

Remediations that Return “Asset Not Reached”
Risk Vector	Remediation Performed	Refresh Expectations
TLS/SSL Certificates	Certificate was removed	Expected result: No finding detected. The refresh status is “Asset Not Reached.” Finding behavior: Finding’s last seen date remains unchanged. The finding will continue to impact the rating until its remaining lifetime completes.
TLS/SSL Certificates	Certificate was updated or replaced	Expected result: Refresh will locate new information and generate a new finding. The old finding’s status will remain “Asset Not Reached.” Finding behavior: When an expired certificate is updated or replaced, it generates a new finding due to the different serial number. The previous finding will need to complete its remaining lifetime. The finding identifier may change depending on the Subject Alternative Names (SAN).
TLS/SSL Configurations	Certificate publicly removed or taken offline	Expected result: No finding detected. The refresh status is “Asset Not Reached.” Finding behavior: Finding’s last seen date remains unchanged. The finding will continue to impact the rating until its remaining lifetime completes.
Web Application Headers	Updated from HTTPS-to-HTTP redirect to an HTTPS-to-HTTPS redirect	Expected result: Finding should improve from BAD to NEUTRAL. Finding behavior: If there is an issue reaching the final redirect (e.g. a firewall, the IP address does not change between the original domain and redirect domain), the refresh status will be “Asset Not Reached.” See troubleshooting section for details.
Web Application Headers	Domain removed	Expected result: No finding detected. The refresh status is “Asset Not Reached.” Finding behavior: Finding’s last seen date remains unchanged. The finding will continue to impact the rating until its remaining lifetime completes.
Open Ports	Certificate publicly removed or taken offline	Expected result: No finding detected. The refresh status is “Asset Not Reached.” Finding behavior: Finding’s last seen date remains unchanged. The finding will continue to impact the rating until its remaining lifetime completes. Closed UDP ports are undetectable and marked as “closed” after the finding completes its lifetime (60 days).
Server Software	Server decommissioned	Expected result: No finding detected. The refresh status is “Asset Not Reached.” Finding behavior: Finding’s last seen date remains unchanged. The finding will continue to impact the rating until its remaining lifetime completes.

Troubleshooting: Why can’t my assets be reached?

The most common reasons assets are unable to be reached are:

The asset is not reachable or is slow to respond.
Our scans are blocked.

1. Asset is Not Reachable or is Slow to Respond

The asset is not online, it times out, or is slow to respond. Some examples of this include:

The asset has been taken down
The asset is slow to load
The asset was down during the refresh
The domain is hosted on a rotation IP provided by a hosting provider, so our refreshes only get intermittent results
The server name is misconfigured

Even if the asset is only down for a short period of time, it interferes with our ability to refresh the finding. To account for this, user-initiated refreshes attempt to contact the asset multiple times in a period of up to six days. If the asset remains unreachable after six days, the request times out and the status updates to “Refreshed - Asset Not Reached.”

2. Our Scans are Blocked

There may be website configurations in place that block Bitsight scans. Some examples that interfere with refreshing findings include:

Web App Firewalls (WAF) such as Cloudflare (Bot Fight Mode), AWS cloudfront, Akamai CDN, or firewall rules preventing access from an outside network
Captcha pages or other human verification methods shown on page load
Anti-crawler protection
Geo-blocking
Web pages that require a client-side certificate to browse
Firewall configurations preventing access to a website from external networks

Next Steps

If you have further questions related to a user-requested refresh, please contact Bitsight Support with details about the records you are trying to refresh.

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