Nessus (software)
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- For other uses of the word "Nessus", please refer to Nessus.
In computer security, Nessus is a comprehensive open-source vulnerability scanning program. It consists of nessusd, the Nessus daemon, which does the scanning, and nessus, the client, which presents the results to the user. Its name is derived from the centaur who betrayed Heracles and Deianira.
In typical operation, nessus begins by doing a port scan with nmap to determine which ports are open on the target and then tries various exploits on the open ports. The vulnerability tests, available as a large body of plugins, are written in NASL (Nessus Attack Scripting Language), a programming language optimized for custom network interaction.
Optionally, the results of the scan can be reported in various formats, such as plain text, XML, HTML and LATEX. The results can also be saved in a knowledge base for reference against future vulnerability scans. Scanning can be automated through the use of a command-line client.
Some of Nessus's vulnerability tests can cause vulnerable services or operating systems to crash (computing)--the user is provided with the option to disable these "unsafe tests."
Nessus provides additional functionality beyond testing for known network vulnerabilities. For instance, it can use Windows credentials to examine patch levels on computers running the Windows operating system, and can perform password auditing using dictionary and brute force methods. The program provides options to mask its activities from network intrusion detection systems.
Nessus is the world's most popular open-source vulnerability scanner, estimated to be used by over 75,000 organizations world-wide. Many of the world's largest organizations are realizing significant cost savings by using Nessus to audit business-critical enterprise devices and applications.
The "Nessus" Project was started by Renaud Deraison in 1998 to provide to the Internet community a free, powerful, up-to-date and easy to use remote security scanner. Nessus is currently rated among the top products of its type throughout the security industry and is endorsed by professional information security organizations such as the SANS Institute.
External links
- Nessus homepage (http://www.nessus.org/)
- Nmap Security Scanner homepage (http://www.insecure.org/nmap)de:Nessus (Software)