BeyondTrust Network Security Scanner, powered by Retina (Legacy) vs. Tenable Vulnerability Management

Retina Network Security Scanner is well suited for any environment and infrastructure that would like to expose security deficiencies across their network as well as visualize vulnerabilities as they pertain to assets in their environment. I cannot think of any scenario that would not be appropriate for this product. Since the product carries over to pretty much all assets in your environment, I don't know off the top of y head what it wouldn't be appropriate for.

Incentivized

I've been using this product since it began as an open source product, I really like it and for the money, I think it's probably the best choice for most companies who need a product like this. Over the years I've seen the interface change quite a bit and sometimes I think it's a bit unclear how to do certain things and the different packages can be confusing, these are the only reasons I'm giving it a 9 instead of a 10.

Incentivized

• Besides the fact that Retina NSS performs the fundamental task of scanning all my network devices, one of the main strengths is the speed at which it scans. Time is money and I know people tent to wear that cliché out a bit, but when you are as small as we are of a team, every minute counts.
• We have utilized other network security scanners over the past 21 years and Retina NSS seems to have the smallest footprint with no evidence of scanning degrading performance of the devices scanned.
• They seem to update their database frequently enough that we notice a correlation of threats to discovery.
• There is a small learning curve, but overall, a seasoned IT professional can quickly get up and running in a few hours and get usable results quickly. This falls back on the speed at which Retina NSS scans. My previous network security scanners would sometimes take hours to complete a full vulnerability scan of between 250 - 400 devices, now it only takes a fraction of that time.

Incentivized

• Setup of the internal scanner was fairly simple and straight forward.
• An update came out for the internal scanner that allows you to add an Internal Certificate Authority for lookup.
• Has automated reporting to keep executives and compliance departments informed.
• Internal scanner can be configured to auto-update itself.
• "Recast Rules" allows your organization to redefine a vulnerabilities' classification, if it is not applicable or your disagree.
• External PCI scans allow you to remediate before submitting to Tenable.io for review.
• Tenable.io staff was very patient and helpful. They provided some limited guidance with remediation.
• Internal and External scans can be automated. schedule for the automated scans is very granular.

Incentivized

• I do not have any obvious cons to report at this time.

Incentivized

• Expensive - You do pay a slight premium for the best product in the space.
• Asset management is difficult to work with if you have a lot of asset turnover, the license can be ''held'' for 3-6 months after the asset is gone from your environment.

Incentivized

We like to renew tenable each year we have had it so far.

Incentivized

Support is usually really great at walking you through any steps you need to take when you get stuck on something. There are a few false positives and errors that have come up over the years that required their help to get through. Unfortunately, the steps required to diagnose some problems are more tedious than I think should be necessary. (IE: SQL instances can throw errors that clog up your logs because one plugin affects it in a certain way. The process to diagnose this is to watch timestamps of plugins in a log while monitoring the SQL logs at the same time and using your best guess as to what is causing it.)

Incentivized

Retina Network Security Scanner is the only product we have used in our enterprise. I have used a product in the past called GFI LanGuard Network Security Scanner and while it did perform the functions of vulnerability testing, etc...it just wasn't nearly as refined as Retina NSS. It was slow and was not as lightweight as Retina as far as end-user detection.

Incentivized

Tenable.io has a comparable set of features, with excellent support and a competitive price. After less than desirable experiences with another company, we moved to Tenable and haven't looked back since.

Incentivized

• The product is extremely easy to deploy, extremely positive.
• If you take full advantage of this product as I did, you will maximize your ROI quickly as we did.
• We were able to visualize our vulnerabilities efficiently and effectively and maintain scheduled scans that allowed us to maintain a continuous improvement atmosphere while securing our investments.
• The ability provide reporting allows our IT department to prioritize issues and remediate as required without chasing down low risk issues over high risk issues that need immediate attention.

Incentivized

• Since this is a requirement for our PCI compliance and the cost is relatively low, the ROI isn't really something we need to think too much about, Tenable's pricing is fair and affordable.

Incentivized