Release 4.2: Alibaba | AWS | Azure | GCP | HyperV | IBM | KVM | Nutanix | Oracle Cloud | Openstack | Proxmox | RedHat Openshift | VMware | Xenserver

July 03, 2026 (Updated on August 03, 2026)

 The operating system for Virtual Scanner cannot be upgraded. You need to replace the scanner image or deploy a new scanner with the latest image, although this may not always be necessary. For details on when a scanner replacement is necessary, refer to the Know when scanner replacement is needed section. 

What's New?

This release brings new features and updates to data centers and desktop platforms. 

qVSA-4.2 supports both EFI and BIOS boot modes

New Features

With this release, we have introduced new features for:

Alibaba

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

AWS

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes, with UEFI as the default for all instance types that support it.

Azure

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

GCP

Support of Shielded VM capabilities such as Secure Boot, vTPM (for Measured Boot), and Integrity Monitoring.

HyperV 

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes. UEFI is the default boot mode.

IBM 

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

KVM

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

Nutanix

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

OpenStack

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

Oracle Cloud

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

Proxmox

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

RedHat OpenShift

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

Vmware

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

Xenserver 

Supports both UEFI and BIOS boot modes.

Limitations

Currently, we are not supporting SCAP scanning (applies to all platforms).

Alibaba

Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

AWS

Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

Azure

  • Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.
  • No support for security type: Confidential VMs.
  • No support for security feature: Integrity Monitoring.
  • New version is Gen2 based, refer to https://aka.ms/azuregen2vm for supported VM sizes.

HyperV 

Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

IBM

Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

KVM

Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

Nutanix 

Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

OpenStack

Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

Oracle Cloud

  • No support for Confidential VM.
  • Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

Proxmox

Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

RedHat OpenShift

  • SecureBoot is not yet supported.
  • QEMU guest agent is not included in the qVSA-4.2 image.

Vmware 

Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

Xenserver

Secure Boot and vTPM are not yet supported.

Issues Addressed

Component Issue

Security Fixes

Earlier versions of qVSA included an Oracle Enterprise Linux kernel that did not contain the kernel updates for CVE-2026-43284 - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-43284

Although the affected kernel package was present, this vulnerability is not considered exploitable on earlier qVSA releases because the Qualys scanner appliance is a hardened, self-contained appliance with no open TCP ports and does not permit the installation of guest agents or other software that could enable remote privilege escalation.

For additional information, refer to the Scanner Appliance Security: FAQs

This release of qVSA-4.2 has updated the Oracle UEK7 kernel package to kernel-uek-5.15.0-320.202.8.3.el8uek.x86_64.rpm, meeting the security compliance requirements for CVE-2026-43284. 

References:

This issue has been addressed for all platforms.

Scan Capacity Correction

Fixed an issue where scan capacity was incorrectly calculated, resulting in a higher-than-expected reported capacity.