HCL AppScan vs. Metasploit vs. Tenable Nessus

In HCL AppScan automation maintain a reasonable pace of review and remediation of flaws for our apps. HCL AppScan is a cloud-based enterprise mobile application security testing solution for Android and iOS applications developed using Java, .Net or Objective-C. So it covers all our area and It consists of three components: AppScan Source Edition for developing and testing apps internally, AppScan Standard Edition for testing internally or externally, and AppScan Enterprise Edition for large enterprises who need to secure their entire mobile application portfolio across the organization with multiple device types.

Incentivized

It is easy to use with sufficient documentation on how to use the tools for end users or newbies. Experienced testers will find it easy to customise and configure the test cases. Just wished that I could have taken up a course on using this tool in my study days so that I could had explored more and improved my familiarity with the tool, unlike when working where access and time to explore the other features of the tool is limited

Incentivized

It is an excellent tool for scanning servers, workstations, and network devices to identify missing patches and misconfiguration; we regularly use it to confirm patch effectiveness after the update; it also helps us for preparing audits such as iso 27001, and regulatory requirements, it also helps us to identify open ports and services that violate security.

• AppScan works well in finding application vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting and all of the OWASP top 10.
• Flexible reporting allows us to generate executive reports for application owners as well as separate technical reports for developers and system engineers.
• Technical reports include remediation information and cross reference CVSS scores
• Because it maintains data on all repeated assessments it helps us to do trending and metrics on compliance

Incentivized

• Easy to use.
• Many exploits available.
• Multi-platform.

Incentivized

• Nessus is best at performing vulnerability scans, in fact, it gives findings and moreover accurate findings of the assessments. It does not do penetration testing or exploit the vulnerabilities because it is concerned about scanning the systems/applications.
• In fact, Nessus has multiple profiles/policies to perform different types of scans such as, scans oriented for PCI-DSS, malware scans, web application scans, bad shell shock detection scan to name a few.
• Nessus has the ability to classify the vulnerabilities into risk-based categories from critical to even informational which I think is one of the things that separates Nessus from other vulnerability scanners.

Incentivized

• It can have a FAQ session in the Application itself.
• It can recommend the fix for the error that occurred during the scan.
• Like its storing multiple manuals explore, It should have the capability of storing multiple logins.

Incentivized

• More robust menus
• Better plugin inter-operation

Incentivized

• The tool has lots of options for setting up before scanning any device, this methodology could be simplified further with default configuration for various devices predefined, anyhow we can use this technique by making use of policies.
• For advanced users we cannot disable the plugins inside the plugin groups, we can enable the whole set of plugins at a time, for few hundreds its ok, but thousands of plugins are of waste of resource and time.

Incentivized

Nessus is best and easy to use application for Vulnerabilities finding and reporting, it has multiple platforms and wide scope covering almost all devices for security improvement so far, thus we are very likely to continue its services.

Incentivized

Tenable Nessus is a great product and provides a lot of value, but it is difficult to set up and use and the amount of data it generates can be overwhelming. It does help us prioritize based on the severity of the detection, however there are sometimes mitigating factors that we have implemented that Nessus does not account for, which causes lots of noise in the reports.

Incentivized

We don't use it.

Incentivized

I haven't needed to contact support yet. But issues are easily solved with a quick internet search which means support and by extension, the larger community are involved and knowledgeable.

Incentivized

Both solutions are decent, however, I had team members who had the experience working with HCL AppScan. Also, the product was priced nominally which suited our budget. Further, HCL AppScan's user community was bigger and many learning resources were freely available which helped junior peers learn quickly and eliminate any issues

Incentivized

Metasploit is the most well-known tool in the average pen tester's toolkit. It's hard to compare to its neighbor's due to its size and following.

Incentivized

Sometimes when we identify a vulnerability with Nessus that has an exploit, we made a proof of concept with Metasploit in order to show to the IT managers the importance of the software/hardware hardening.

Incentivized

• There are countless implementations to accomplish the same thing, and so many configurations are required.
• Even if you test it finished and find no vulnerabilities, there is no point if you just get the error screen.
• Until now, I was worried about vulnerabilities and security in software development, but I think it was good to find the vulnerability problem quickly with HCL AppScan.

Incentivized

• Positive: Improves efficiency of our network penetration testing operations.
• Positive: Allows for collaboration and information sharing during a penetration test.

Incentivized

• Nessus certainly has a positive impact while me while performing my job, either as security research, or performing vulnerability assessments for clients. It gives a lot of information about the system/application after performing scans. The number of false positives is also less compared to other vulnerability scanners.
• The professional edition is very useful as policy templates available in this edition are very handy and useful even to perform compliance scan like PCI DSS scan.
• Also, the ability to export the scan results into reports in formats like HTML, PDF is very useful which could be for performing system/application reviews.

Incentivized