Nessus Essentials — Vulnerability Scanner

Nessus Essentials is a free vulnerability assessment tool for upto 16 IP address. The free version comes with some excellent and free tools:-

Windows Install

STEP 1 — https://www.tenable.com/downloads/nessus?loginAttempted=true

STEP 2 — You then need to “get activation Code”

STEP 3 — Installed as default, once the installation has been completed, your default browser will bring up the following web page:- http://localhost:8834/WelcomeToNessus-Install/welcome

STEP 4 — It will ask you connect via SSL but there is no cert install by default, so go to “advanced” > “accept the risk and continue”

STEP 5 — Select a product > Nessus Essentials

STEP 6 — Activation Code > enter code (this will be emailed after you register)

STEP 7 — Create username and password > do the things

STEP 8 — Plugins will automatically download

STEP 9 — When the installation has completed, you will be asked for a target and if you would like to start a scan. You can skip this, but I entered a test vm on my network, this will create a “Basic Network Scan” (See Basic Network Scan)

Kali Linux

STEP 1 — go to https://www.tenable.com/downloads/nessus?loginAttempted=true and download Nessus-*-*.deb“

STEP 2 — Install using the following command.

STEP 3 — After the installation has completed, Start the services:-

sudo systemctl enable nessusd
sudo systemctl start nessusd

STEP 4 — You can check if the service is started and running by running the following :-

systemctl status nessusd.service

N.B — Nessus binds to TCP port 8834 … to access the portal https://localhost:8834

STEP 5 — Select a product > Nessus Essentials

STEP 6 — Activation Code > enter code (this will be emailed, after you register)

STEP 7 — Create username and password > do the things

STEP 8 — Plugins will automatically download

STEP 9 — When the installation has completed, you will be asked for a target and if you would like to start a scan. You can skip this, but I entered a test vm on my network, this will create a “Basic Network Scan” (See Basic Network Scan)

Basic Network Scan

This continues from step 9 for both Kali and Windows

You can monitor the status on the right …

STEP 10 — To view the report, on the left click on “Report” and select what format would like the report in (I have selected html and Executive Summary)

Web Application scan

STEP 1 — go to “My Scan” and click on “New Scan”

STEP 2 — Click on “Web Application Tests”

STEP 3 — Name the job and add the target IP

N.B. — There are a couple of other options you can configure, but for this example I have only configured the above.

STEP 4 — On the left-hand side, click “Launch” to start the scan. When has finished you can access the report.

To view the report, on the left click on “Report” and select what format would like the report in (I have selected html and Executive Summary)