Nessus Vulnerability scanner

Nessus is a program with many features, however it is quite difficult to use and there are only a few articles to guide a new user through the confusion of installation and use. In this article, we’ll cover the basics of installing and configuring Nessus. It will also cover the main features of the current version of Nessus.

Nessus is a tool for automating the inspection and detection of known vulnerabilities and security breaches. Usually someone – a hacker group, a security software company, or even a simple user discovers a new vulnerability in some software. 

This vulnerability can be found by accident or by careful search; information about a new vulnerability emerges in various details in the world of computer security. 

Nessus is a program with many features, however it is quite difficult to use and there are only a few articles to guide a new user through the confusion of installation and use. In this article, we’ll walk you through the basics of installing and configuring Nessus.

Discover

Active scanning, agents, passive monitoring, cloud connectors and CMDB integrations provide unified visibility and a continuous view of all of your assets—both known and previously unknown.

Assess

With coverage for more than 55,000 vulnerabilities, Tenable has the industry’s most extensive CVE and security configuration support to help you understand all of your exposures.

Prioritize

Combine vulnerability data, threat intelligence and data science for easy-to-understand risk scores to quickly assess risk and know which vulnerabilities to fix first.

Windows

To install a Nessus scanner on a Windows device:

1. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the Nessus installer.
2. Double-click the Nessus installation file to start the installation process.
3. On the Welcome to the InstallShield Wizard for Tenable Nessus page, click Next to continue.
4. On the License Agreement page, read the terms of the Tenable Network Security, Inc. Nessus Software License and Subscription Agreement.
5. Click the I accept the terms of the license agreement button.
6. Click the Next button.
7. On the Destination Folder page, do one of the following:
   • Click the Next button to accept the default installation folder.
   • Click the Change button to install Nessus in a different folder.
8. On the Ready to Install the Program page, click the Install button.The Installing Tenable Nessus page appears, and a Status bar indicates the installation progress. The process may take several minutes.
9. If prompted, install WinPcap. Nessus installation requires WinPcap. If WinPcap was previously installed as part of another network application, you can skip these substeps.
   1. On the Welcome to the WinPcap Setup Wizard page, click the Next button.
   2. On the WinPcap License Agreement page, read the terms of the license agreement, then click the I Agree button to continue.
   3. On the WinPcap Installation options page, ensure that the Automatically start the WinPcap driver at boot time option is checked, then click the Install button.
   4. On the Completing the WinPcap Setup Wizard screen, click the Finish button.
10. On the Tenable Nessus InstallShield Wizard Completed page, click the Finish button.The Welcome to Nessus page automatically opens in your default browser.

(Kali) Linux

To install a Nessus scanner on a Linux device:

1. Install the Nessus installation package downloaded from the Downloads Page. The specific filename varies depending on your platform and version
2. Start the Nessus daemon using the following command depending on your platform:
   1. service nessusd start
   2. /etc/init.d/nessusd start
3. Complete the initial configuration for Nessus and configure it as a managed scanner linked to Tenable.io, as described in Configure Nessus in the Nessus User Guide .