Tenable headquartered in Columbia offers Nessus, a vulnerability scanning and security assessment solution used to analyze an entity's security posture, vulnerability testing, and provide configuration assessments.
Nessus is the smallest product in the Tenable stable and is also the first vulnerability scanner to be created almost 20 years ago. Great tool for once off scans. But you need the other products if you want real time monitoring etc
Verified User
Team Lead
Chose Tenable Nessus
Comparing other products, Nessus has a lot of plus points. Not only for PCIDSS, Nessus is great for other compliance bodies such as HIPAA, NIST etc.
We looked at AlienVault since it can be a SIEM and scanner all in one. Ultimately, we decided AlienVault didn't stack up well against Nessus so we decided to purchase Nessus. Glad we did.
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.
Nessus is standard vulnerabilities assessment tool, i would recommend for mid or higher level organization to have their personalised tool from Nessus for day to day managing of their network security with continuous improvements.
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.
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Nessus points out any vulnerable or outdated software Technologies used in the system, thus eliminating any chances for security flaws being turned up.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.