Chapter 9. Vulnerability Assessment

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9.3.2. Nessus

Nessus is a full service security scanner. The plug in architecture of Nessus allows users to customize

it for their systems and networks. As with any scanner, Nessus is only as good as the signature database

it relies upon. Fortunately, Nessus is updated on a daily basis. It features full reporting, host scanning,

and real time vulnerability searches. Remember that there could be false positives and false negatives,

even in a tool as powerful and as frequently updated as Nessus.

Note

Nessus is not included with Red Hat Linux and is not supported. It has been included in this docu 

ment as a reference to users who may be interested in using this popular application.

For more information about Nessus, refer to the official website at http://www.nessus.org.

9.3.3. Whisker

Whisker is an excellent CGI scanner. Whisker has the capability to not only check for CGI vulner 

abilities but do so in an evasive manner, so as to elude intrusion detection systems. It comes with

excellent documentation which should be carefully reviewed prior to running the program. When

you have found your Web servers serving up CGI scripts, Whisker can be an excellent resource for

checking the security of these servers.

Note

Whisker is not included with Red Hat Linux and is not supported. It has been included in this docu 

ment as a reference to users who may be interested in using this popular application.

More information about Whisker can be found at http://www.wiretrip.net.

9.3.4. VLAD the Scanner

VLAD is a scanner developed by the RAZOR team at Bindview, Inc. that may be used to check for

vulnerabilities. It checks for the SANS Top Ten list of common security issues (SNMP issues, file

sharing issues, etc.). While not as full featured as Nessus, VLAD is worth investigating.

Note

VLAD is not included with Red Hat Linux and is not supported. It has been included in this document

as a reference to users who may be interested in using this popular application.

More information about VLAD can be found on the Tools page on the RAZOR team website at

http://razor.bindview.com/index.shtml.