The Nessus server performs the actual testing while the client provides configuration and reporting functionality. Clients are available for both Windows and Unix. These features provide a great deal of flexibility for the penetration tester. It even runs on MAC OS X and IBM/AIX, but Linux tends to make the installation simpler.

The server portion will run on most any flavor of Unix. A central client or multiple distributed clients can control all the servers. Servers can be placed at various strategic points on a network allowing tests to be conducted from various points of view. One of the very powerful features of Nessus is its client server technology. Typically someone, a hacker group, a security company, or a researcher discovers a specific way to violate the security of a software product. Nessus is a great tool designed to automate the testing and discovery of known security problems. Tenable Network Security estimates that it is used by over 75,000 organizations worldwide. It is free of charge for personal use in a non-enterprise environment.Īccording to surveys done by, Nessus is the world’s most popular vulnerability scanner, taking first place in the 2000, 2003, and 2006 security tools survey. Nessus is a proprietary comprehensive vulnerability scanner which is developed by Tenable Network Security.

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