New Nessus Remediation Report Now Available
by Paul Asadoorian on June 4, 2013
The Nessus Suggested Remediations report that can be emailed to specified recipients in the “Scan Summary Email” is now available as a report chapter.
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New Nessus Targeted Email Notifications and Monitoring
by Paul Asadoorian on May 28, 2013
When scans are complete, Nessus can now send an email with scan results and remediation recommendations to the recipients of your choice. This can be done for individual scans or set up in conjunction with scan scheduling to monitor the discovery of critical vulnerabilities or other conditions and automatically deliver the findings to the appropriate people.
Nessus' Built-in Scanning Recommendations
by Paul Asadoorian on May 9, 2013
Tuning your Nessus scan policy can yield great results. Tenable has added a new Nessus plugin which will analyze the scan results for your environment and the scan settings that were used, and then suggest improvements for a better audit.
Nessus 5.2.1 Is Available
by Paul Asadoorian on May 7, 2013
Nessus 5.2.1 is available for download.
New Nessus Report Consolidates Missing Patches
by Paul Asadoorian on May 7, 2013
Keeping tabs on missing patches is one of the challenges faced by everyone responsible for managing systems. Regardless of platform, there are a plethora of patches to be applied. The new Nessus “Patch Report” plugin provides an actionable report that displays a list of consolidated patches that need to be applied to become fully patched.
Scanning and Patch Auditing VMware Using Nessus
by Paul Asadoorian on May 6, 2013
To help you discover all the components of your virtual environment, Tenable has several Nessus plugins to detect virtualization servers, discover vulnerabilities, and enumerate VMs (both active and inactive). Nessus supports remote vulnerability identification and local patch auditing of VMware vSphere ESX/ESXi and vCenter.
Nessus 5.2 Released
by Paul Asadoorian on April 23, 2013
Tenable is excited to announce a new release of the Nessus vulnerability scanner! This major release provides several new features and enhancements, including enhanced post-scan analysis tools, expanded OS support and integration, and improved usability.
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Using Nessus to Discover Malware and Botnet Hosts
by Paul Asadoorian on April 18, 2013
When performing a vulnerability scan (or even a penetration test), you must be able to spot a host that is already compromised, contains malware, or is part of a botnet. When malware exists on a host you're testing, the right course of action is to switch from scanning or penetration testing mode into forensics mode to determine how the system was compromised and implement a plan to remove the backdoors that may exist.
Linux/UNIX Patch Auditing Using Nessus
by Paul Asadoorian on April 16, 2013
Nessus can check that your Linux and UNIX systems are up-to-date with the latest patches. Tenable has released more than 1,000 plugins this year that check for local Linux and UNIX operating system's missing patches. This includes kernel patches and security updates to software packages being maintained by each distribution.
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New Nessus VMware vSphere/vCenter Audits Now Available
by Paul Asadoorian on April 15, 2013
Tenable has implemented new checks using the VMware SOAP API, and we have developed APIs for both ESXi and vCenter. Supported versions are ESXi 4.x/5.x and vCenter 4.x/5.x
Nessus Turns 15!
by Paul Asadoorian on April 4, 2013
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Nessus vulnerability scanner. Learn about some of the key Nessus milestones over the past 15 years.
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Searching for Custom Malicious File Hashes with Nessus
by Ron Gula on March 15, 2013
The Nessus malicious process detection plugins were recently enhanced to allow for searching with custom file hash lists. This allows organizations to add their own sources of malicious file hashes into Tenable's set of cloud-based hashes and botnet checks.
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Nessus Now Audits Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS Configurations
by Paul Asadoorian on February 21, 2013
Tenable Nessus ProfessionalFeed customers can now audit the configuration of PAN-OS™-based Palo Alto Networks firewalls. Nessus can audit the firewall operational configurations and allow Palo Alto firewall reports to be embedded into Nessus reports.
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Nessus 5.0.3 Is Now Available
by Paul Asadoorian on February 19, 2013
Nessus 5.0.3 is now available for download. This update contains some new capabilities, as well as bug, stability, and security fixes.
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Auditing Microsoft Office Configurations Using Nessus
by Paul Asadoorian on February 8, 2013
Microsoft® Office® is ubiquitous in today’s work environment. Although MS Office applications offer many security configuration options that can reduce the likelihood of exploitation, the default configuration settings typically don’t provide a strong security posture. The requirements and recommendations documented in common regulations and security guides are a great start to securing your Office installations. Tenable customers can also measure and evaluate the security of their Microsoft Office Suite environment using Nessus® and Tenable SecurityCenter™ audit compliance policy files.
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New Nessus Plugins Audit Your Patch Management System Effectiveness
by Paul Asadoorian on January 30, 2013
Nessus integrates with many popular patch management solutions, including IBM Tivoli Endpoint Manager (TEM), Red Hat Network Satellite server, Microsoft WSUS / SCCM, and VMware Go. The new Nessus "Patch Management Windows Auditing Conflicts" and "Patch Management Auditing Satisfied" plugins automatically cross-reference vulnerabilities from credentialed patch audits with patch information from your patch management system on the same asset, reporting discrepancies in a single report.
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Using Nessus to Audit Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Configurations
by Paul Asadoorian on January 23, 2013
Trust, but Verify
Recently, Tenable added audit files for Nessus ProfessionalFeed users allowing them to audit Microsoft SharePoint server configurations. The audit policy uses both operating system and database information from a SharePoint server farm and compares it against the settings specified in the DISA STIG guide for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 servers. This blog entry discusses some of the Nessus functionality that was used to create the audit file.
Tracking Wireless SSIDs Using Nessus
by Paul Asadoorian on January 14, 2013
Nessus has plugins that can pull out current (or previously used) wireless service set identifiers (WiFi SSIDs) that Windows and OS X systems have connected to in the past. The following plugins are used: Mac OS X Wireless Networks List (63340) - This new plugin reports a history of wireless networks used by the target system, and Windows Wireless SSID (WMI) (25197) - Using WMI, this plugin reports the existing wireless network the target host is currently using.
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Detecting Compromised SSL Certificates Using Nessus
by Paul Asadoorian on December 13, 2012
When Thieves Target SSL Certificates
SSL is one of the most commonly used protocols to provide encryption for a variety of different applications. As such, it has come under great scrutiny over the years. While SSL misconfiguration is commonplace, one of the more recent attacks against SSL is to steal the Certificate Authority (CA) certificate. (In a paper released in July 2012, NIST warned that this type of attack would increase). Access to this certificate allows the attacker to issue valid certificates, and in the case of a code-signing certificate, use it to sign malware. Malware executing with this level of trust increases the chances of successfully being installed on the system. Other CA certificates are used to generate website certificates used by attackers to impersonate secure access to a given website.
Configuration Auditing Cisco Nexus Operating System (NX-OS) with Nessus
by Paul Asadoorian on December 10, 2012
Recently, Tenable added audit files for Nessus ProfessionalFeed users allowing them to audit device configurations based on Cisco Nexus Operating System (NX-OS). Cisco NX-OS runs on high-end Nexus switches, MDS storage switches, and Cisco UCS networking. This audit follows most of the recommendations that are included in the Cisco Guide to Securing Cisco NX-OS Software Devices. This blog entry discusses some of the Nessus functionality that was used in creating the audit file.