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Comprehensive Vulnerability Scanning Comparison in Network Testing

In this study by Michael Overton, Jason Ferris, and Erik Brown, various scanners like Nessus and Retina were analyzed for network vulnerability assessment. Scanners' effectiveness, drawbacks, and reporting methodologies were reviewed, emphasizing the importance of choosing the right tools. The study identified the top vulnerabilities detected and the best-performing scanners for a more secure network.

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Comprehensive Vulnerability Scanning Comparison in Network Testing

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  1. Vulnerability Scanning Michael Overton, Jason Ferris, Erik Brown

  2. Scanners Used • Nessus • Covered the most CVEs, but missed some things • SARA • Only gave a subset of Nessus’ results • X-Scan • Also only a subset of Nessus’ results • ISS • Not particularly useful (though only the trial) • Retina • Gave a lot of results • Little intersection with the others

  3. Network Scanned • Small private network • Benefits: • Feasible to use trial version software • Viable simulation of larger network running several machines using the same hard disk image • Issues: • Hard to gather statistically significant data

  4. Reporting Methodology • Compilation of scan results done by hand • No team members particularly skilled in a viable scripting language • Small number of reports made hand compilation more feasible, but it became quickly apparent that this method would not scale well • Sorted final results both by majority voting and severity rating

  5. Majority Voting • Compiled the list of CVEs found by each scanner • Re-ordered the report to indicate which CVEs were reported by the most number of scanners • Top Five:

  6. Severity Rating • Cross correlated CVEs with CVSS base score • Nessus and Retina covered the top five predominately • Top Five:

  7. Metasploit • Because of the small size of the network, the number of possible exploits were limited • Many required user interaction or previously established host access • Setup, but did not utilize a Samba exploit

  8. Conclusions • Nessus and Retina seemed to be the best of the ones we used • Many scanners seemed to focus on detecting vulnerabilities specifically not detected by other scanners, requiring the use of many scanners to detect most vulnerabilities • Many frivolous “vulnerabilities” detected, making it difficult to get useful results

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