What is a vulnerability scan? How does it differ from a Contact us? What are the benefits of a vulnerability scan? How often should you conduct a vulnerability scan? This article answers all these questions!

What is a vulnerability scan?

A vulnerability scan is essentially an automated process to identify potential security risks associated with your external perimeter or internal network. The market offers various vulnerability scanners, both free and paid. However, the key is to either know how to use the vulnerability scanner properly or to ensure your security vendor uses a trusted scanning solution.

At Lucid Security, we provide a vulnerability assessment as a service. Typically, the aim of a vulnerability assessment is to pinpoint potential security risks. These include vulnerable or outdated software versions, potentially risky ports/services exposed to the Internet, and sensitive files, among others. A reputable security vendor always provides a custom report with the vulnerability scan. Too often, security vendors may only provide standard HTML, PDF, or CSV outputs from a vulnerability scanner. This practice is not ideal because one should always manually verify the outputs from a vulnerability scanner. Results can be false positives, merely informational findings with no real security impact, or the criticality may be inadequately categorized. For this reason, Lucid Security always reviews the results of a vulnerability scan and ensures the report clearly articulates the vulnerabilities and remediation measures, and excludes any false positives.

Lastly, a vulnerability assessment stops at the identification phase of a vulnerability. Whereas a penetration test continues to the actual exploitation of a vulnerability.

Why should you have a vulnerability scan?

The reasons for conducting a vulnerability assessment can vary among organizations. A significant driver for many companies is compliance or customer requirements. It is common for organizations to undergo vulnerability assessments for compliance purposes or because they are doing business with a customer who demands a vulnerability scan and its results. Another reason is simply best practice to identify any potential issues on their external perimeter or internal network. Both are valid reasons.

How often should you conduct a vulnerability scan?

Lucid Security generally recommends conducting quarterly vulnerability scans at a minimum. With the ever-changing security landscape, new security vulnerabilities often emerge from security researchers or hackers. Thus, software you installed on a webserver that was just updated might develop a new vulnerability the following month. A vulnerability scan helps you stay ahead of issues before they escalate. It is also common to perform vulnerability scans monthly or bi-annually.

Conclusion

Lucid Security advises companies to perform quarterly vulnerability assessment, especially those with a larger than average attack surface. A reputable security vendor should provide the results of a vulnerability scan. Lucid Security always delivers custom reports that highlight the most relevant information on how to remediate and fix the issues.

How Lucid Security Can Help

Lucid Security employs expert security engineers with decades of combined experience in system administration, network administration, and security engineering. Our team delivers quality reports to ensure your organization remains secure. Contact us today to learn more about our vulnerability scan services.

Whether you aspire to become a security engineer or seek security services for your organization, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Nessus. But what is Nessus? This blog will highlight Nessus and its use by security vendors and internal security personnel within security operations centers (SOCs).

Overview

Tenable® created Nessus, a powerful vulnerability scanner. It enables internal security engineers and security vendors to identify vulnerabilities from both internal and external perspectives. Its high configurability allows for fine-tuning to suit your organization’s specific needs.

How Nessus Helps Security Engineers

Security vendors, contracted by organizations for their expertise and knowledge, need to utilize powerful vulnerability scanners, despite their cost. Nessus often stands as the “gold standard” in vulnerability scanners for several reasons:

• It identifies unsupported or vulnerable software. Identifying unsupported software is crucial, as it indicates that the vendor will no longer release important patches for any existing vulnerabilities. Nessus excels at detecting version numbers that security engineers might overlook. However, skilled security engineers must verify Nessus results to avoid false positives commonly flagged by vulnerability scanners.
• It streamlines assessments. Penetration tests and security assessments, being time-limited engagements, require efficiency. Quick identification of potential vulnerabilities allows security engineers to focus on easy targets.
• It provides a holistic view of your environment. At Lucid Security, we aim for crystal clear results, highlighting all possible risks or security issues. Nessus offers a comprehensive overview of findings, from critical to informational, helping security engineers distinguish genuine concerns from false positives.
• It manages the attack surface. Managing the attack surface is essential in security. Nessus offers an overview of systems, software, and services on an organization’s external perimeter or internal network, helping to identify what is exposed and where mitigation is necessary.

Downsides to Nessus

Despite its power and usefulness, Nessus has downsides:

• Steep learning curve. Nessus can overwhelm and challenge the untrained user. Lucid Security recommends outsourcing vulnerability assessments to an expert security vendor for proper use and to avoid network disruptions.
• False Positives. Nessus may flag items as false positives, necessitating thorough data review and validation of every flagged finding.
• Confusing reports. Nessus reports, available in formats like CSV, HTML, and PDF, can be lengthy and hard to navigate. Lucid Security addresses this by validating findings, customizing descriptions, recommendations, and providing resources to understand risks and remediation steps, and adjusting vulnerability scans to prevent disruptions.
• System downtime or disruptions. As highlighted in a previous blog post, “What Can Go Wrong During a Penetration Test?“, we’ve discussed that Nessus can potentially cause disruptions by crashing systems. For that reason, it’s important to know that going into a scan and tuning scans accordingly.

Summary

By now, you should understand what Nessus is and how it can benefit your organization. While Lucid Security recommends expert outsourcing for vulnerability scanning, a combination approach can also work, allowing your organization to compare and discuss results to optimize your security strategy.

How Lucid Security Can Help

Lucid Security routinely conducts vulnerability assessments and is happy to partner with you to identify gaps or security issues within your network or external perimeter. Reach out today to get started!

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