Likelihood to Recommend 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
Read full review Nessus is perfectly suitable for performing comprehensive vulnerability assessment scans being a vulnerability scanner. It is less appropriate for performing penetration testing since it is not a penetration testing tool, it does not have the ability and modules to exploit the vulnerabilities of the system.
Read full review Pros Scanning our network for new or existing vulnerable systems. Automation of manual tests and exploits to allow what used to be days of effort to be squeezed into hours. Metasploit has become an integral part in our validation of new systems before their inclusion in our production network. Read full review With Nessus we can find the missing critical patches for a server or workstations. Nessus points out any vulnerable or outdated software Technologies used in the system, thus eliminating any chances for security flaws being turned up. Nessus typically points any configuration level issues in accordance with the OWASP guidelines. Even the configuration of SSL related which are most of the time handled by some vendors or 3rd parties. Nessus not only lists out these Vulnerabilities but describes clearly the vulnerabilities in details with its thousands of plugins updated regularly, the tool also recommends solution with practical details of easy implementation. Read full review Cons Have encountered issues with updating especially after moving from BackTrack to Kali. Sometimes it gets a little buggy, but that's a rare occurrence. Read full review Could use an upgrade within reports. Scans can take a long time to complete. Have to break them down in small sections. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review Usability It's very much a plug and play application that the user can go into with limited knowledge and set-up scans in minutes.
Read full review Support Rating We don't use it.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Metasploit is an all around good suite of tools to test and validate potential vulnerabilites. Other tools have bits and pecies such as
Nmap , Nessus,
Burp Suite , etc. but Metasploit can function in the same way but more.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Return on Investment If you prevent an attack you will save a lot of money. There is a free version that has a lot of useful exploits. You can run it in an open source OS. Read full review 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. Read full review ScreenShots