January 09, 2019

Retina Network Security Scanner Review: "Retina makes it easier for users to assess enterprise networks"

Application Penetration Tester

Secure Consulting Solutions LLCComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Retina is a network security scanner similar to Nessus. It had a rough time competing early in its career but recently has made a resurgence. I believe the government somewhat propped it up from dying, but whatever the case it has been revamped and is now a competitor with Nessus. It does all the same types of things other scanners do and is a pretty decent tool.

Pros and Cons

Scanning, network discovery.
Does a good job at scanning without taking up network resources.
Does not consume a lot of bandwidth.

There are not too many cons with this tool. One would be that it is fairly bulky and you need a beefy server to run this.

Return on Investment

Money saved by means of reducing the need for subject matter experts.
A really decent price for an enterprise tool.

Alternatives Considered

I've evaluated Nessus and multiple other products. I'd say Retina is right there with Nessus. At a certain point, it's not about if the product "finds" more vulnerabilities, it's about how easy it is for the end user. All scanners right now find about the same amount of vulnerabilities, but some are harder for users to use. Retina has a pretty well-designed user interface.

Other Software Used

Tenable SecurityCenter, Metasploit, Nmap

Likelihood to Recommend

If you have an enterprise network, this is a tool that you're going to want to utilize, especially if you have employees that are not experts. The point of tools like this is to make an advanced task easy enough for a non-advanced user to do. Retina achieves this task, making it easier to do advanced things. It will also save companies money as they will not need to hire multiple experts.