Re: Vulnerability scanners

From: Sean Knox (sean.knoxat_private)
Date: Thu Mar 27 2003 - 23:12:24 PST

  • Next message: Paris Stone: "RE: Vulnerability scanners"

    fyi, here is the aforementioned InfoSec article.
    
    http://www.infosecuritymag.com/2003/mar/cover.shtml
    
    Cheers,
    Sean
    
    
    
    R. DuFresne wrote:
    
    >On Thu, 27 Mar 2003, Chris Sharp wrote:
    >
    >  
    >
    >>>Does Qualys' claim to more
    >>>vulnerability signatures and faster/easier updates
    >>>      
    >>>
    >>hold
    >>    
    >>
    >>>water?
    >>>      
    >>>
    >>Well the front page of qualys.com claims that they
    >>scan for 2531 vulnerabilities, that's twice what
    >>Nessus (1378) or ISS (1218) claim.
    >>
    >>As for updates, it's all on their servers and
    >>hardware, set it up once and forget abotu software
    >>updates. Fire and forget. Not sure about the rate of
    >>false positives, but my impression is that they're
    >>cautious, only reporting False positives for dangerous
    >>bugs.
    >>
    >>They don't do active tests, so they don't exploit
    >>known bugs and crash servers during testing. A lot of
    >>Nessus modules need to be launched manually and result
    >>in the scanned machine needing a reboot - somewhat
    >>inconvenient but it removes any doubt as to how
    >>vulnerable you are.
    >>
    >>    
    >>
    >
    >Not totally, one of the recent Information Security issues tested nessus,
    >iss, and a few other scanners.  Not one came out with shining colors,
    >though iss and nessus ranked first and second.  but, it was what they
    >could not do well and such that was the real meat of the article.  The
    >scan is only the beginning, a point of reference from which the real work
    >begins in trying to ascertain how vulnerable one might be.
    >
    >
    >Thanks,
    >
    >Ron DuFresne
    >  
    >
    
    
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