Re: Distributed Vulnerability Scanners

From: Renaud Deraison (deraison@nessus.org)
Date: Fri Mar 07 2003 - 05:18:42 EST


(since a lot of people are doing shameless plugs, I thought I'd jump in)

On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 03:33:38PM -0800, Kohlenberg, Toby wrote:
> I've heard a couple people mention scanning services that offer
> appliances that you can bring in house, but do those actually run
> in a distributed fashion?
>
> For this case, here's the definition I'd use for distributed:
> from a single console, I am able to set up a scan across a block of
> IP addresses, those addresses are then automatically split up according to some
> rules (by subnet or whatever) and sent out to scanning systems that
> are responsible for scanning those groups of IPs. They run the scans
> and send the results back to the central server.
>
> The central server should also be able to push test updates down to the
> scanning systems.
>

This is exactly what you'll get with Lightning (distributed Nessus),
from Tenable Network Security (www.tenablesecurity.com)

- Each proxy defines which Nessus is in charge of which subnet (you can
  have multiple Nessuses by subnet, they'll split the work among them)

- Proxies can be chained, so you can go everywhere in your network (if
  you have NAT within NAT for instance).

- Plugins updates are automatically pushed to the nessusds - no need for
  them to have internet connectivity. If you want a solution which is
  completely disconnected from the internet, you can manually transfer
  the new plugins to the top proxy, and they'll be pushed from there.

And in addition to that, you also get IDS correlation.

                                -- Renaud

-- 
Renaud Deraison
The Nessus Project
http://www.nessus.org
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