Nessus Vulnerability Scan is a new service offered by Fibernet that improves cyber security by pointing out vulnerabilities in your system. With either the Remote (external) or the Agent (internal) service, Fibernet has the right option to protect your data.
What is Nessus?
If your company is PCI compliant, you know that you need to perform a quarterly scan and be audited annually, in order to maintain your certification. You also know (hopefully not by experience) that a failed scan or audit means fixes that take a lot of time, and re-scans or re-audits, which can add up and become really expensive. How can you know what is wrong with your system, or what vulnerabilities you might have?
Even if you aren’t required to be PCI compliant, how can you be sure you and your data aren’t going to be the next target of a cyber crime? How do you better cover the bases, and find those exploits that you don’t notice till it’s too late (think: WannaCry attacks)? What does it take to gain peace of mind?
With Nessus Vulnerability Scan, it doesn’t take much. Actually, it takes less than that, because this new service can be set to automatically scan as often as you’d like, even daily, to search for potential exploits. It integrates directly into the customer dashboard, and lets you see at a glance the issues that need to be fixed.
How does Nessus Work?
Directly from the Nessus website, the company states that “Nessus scans for viruses, malware, backdoors, hosts communicating with botnet-infected systems, known/unknown processes and web services linking to malicious content.” How it works is that it scans specific hosts, like an IP address, and compares the scan data to the known vulnerabilities to Nessus. The parent company researches and maintains a large data bank of known breaches, malware, and exploits. When it finds a match, it alerts you to it.
It does much more than that, however. Not only does it scan for software vulnerability, but also it checks for common service misconfigurations and malformed packet communication that could lead to a DoS attack. It can help you prepare for an audit, which could save your company the cost of retesting before an audit, or the cost of another audit.
There are two types of scans, one external, one internal. The external, called Nessus Remote Vulnerability Scan, is described above, scanning a host from external sources, based on an IP address or a URL. the internal, called Nessus Agent Vulnerability Scan, works by actually installing the scanning agent onto your server, so that is can scan the host from both sides.
What Does Nessus Look Like?
After a table of contents neatly shows the contents of the report, the vulnerabilities discovered are itemized in a list. Each is color-coded for quick reference. The image above shows two different colors, a light blue and a dark blue. Light blue is the color code for the info, which is simply informational data, and not vulnerabilities. The darker blue is the low-risk level.
As shown here, there are also medium-risk and high-risk levels, which are green and orange, respectively. There is also a critical-risk level, which is red. These are obviously the most important links, and they are the vulnerabilities that need to be addressed as soon as possible.
If the scan is regularly used, and the vulnerabilities are accordingly patched, you will definitely be better prepared for audits, and you will definitely be better defended against cyber attacks. Whether you choose the Agent or Remote option, Nessus Vulnerability Scans are a great tool to help you stay on top of your cyber security. Get a free demo scan on your system, or call 1.800.305.6995 for information on this and other cyber security services.