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    Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?

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    • scottalanmillerS
      scottalanmiller @IRJ
      last edited by

      @irj said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

      Nessus works off CVEs not patches. Read the CVE and you will see patching is only part of the solution.

      The question here is about patching, not securing.

      IRJI 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • IRJI
        IRJ @scottalanmiller
        last edited by

        @scottalanmiller said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

        @irj said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

        @dashrender said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

        @stacksofplates said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

        @momurda said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

        @stacksofplates Is there a list somewhere of what registry changes need to be made on each computer after installing these patches from MS? It certainly isnt mentioned in WSUS or Windows Update. I thought that was the point of the constant rebooting.

        I’d have to dig through their logs. That’s why they were so surprised. It’s not listed anywhere but these reg entries needed added or modified.

        OR Nessus needs to find another way to verify that the patch is installed.

        It looks at the attack surface of CVE itself. Auditing patches can be done easily through powershell , nessus looks specifically for vulnerabilities.

        Then it should list vulnerabilities, not missing patches. That just makes it wrong.

        Not sure what you mean here. Nessus is s vulnerability scanner.

        The OP is confused because Tenable uses the name MS1503 for the vulnerability as it is related to patch MS1503. The CVE is named something different. Would you rather have a list of friendly names or CVE that mean nothing to you?

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        • IRJI
          IRJ @scottalanmiller
          last edited by

          @scottalanmiller said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

          Nessus is proprietary, something that doesn't fit with a security audit very well. I'd question the veracity of an auditing tool

          Here is how it works. Every CVE is given a specific plugin from Nessus of any other vulnerability scanner. You can easily read the script yourself if you're worried its inaccurate. Whats proprietary is the delivery and the scanning itself.

          Openvas performance wise is terrible compared to nessus. Although the scan results are similar. Openvas does not scale well

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • IRJI
            IRJ @scottalanmiller
            last edited by

            @scottalanmiller said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

            @irj said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

            Nessus works off CVEs not patches. Read the CVE and you will see patching is only part of the solution.

            The question here is about patching, not securing.

            Then nessus is the wrong tool as it is a vulnerability scanner not patch auditor. If you want to audit patches use powershell

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ObsolesceO
              Obsolesce
              last edited by

              You'd think they would be running OpenVAS or SCAP or something similar instead of just scanning for patches that may or may not apply to the server...

              IRJI 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • IRJI
                IRJ @Obsolesce
                last edited by

                @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                You'd think they would be running OpenVAS or SCAP or something similar instead of just scanning for patches that may or may not apply to the server...

                What are you talking about? It only runs applicable scripts. Nessus is much better than either of those solutions.

                stacksofplatesS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • stacksofplatesS
                  stacksofplates @IRJ
                  last edited by

                  @irj said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                  @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                  You'd think they would be running OpenVAS or SCAP or something similar instead of just scanning for patches that may or may not apply to the server...

                  What are you talking about? It only runs applicable scripts. Nessus is much better than either of those solutions.

                  I don't think it compares to SCAP. That's just hardening rules. I really like OpenSCAP it's just a different tool.

                  ObsolesceO 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • ObsolesceO
                    Obsolesce @stacksofplates
                    last edited by

                    @stacksofplates said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                    @irj said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                    @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                    You'd think they would be running OpenVAS or SCAP or something similar instead of just scanning for patches that may or may not apply to the server...

                    What are you talking about? It only runs applicable scripts. Nessus is much better than either of those solutions.

                    I don't think it compares to SCAP. That's just hardening rules. I really like OpenSCAP it's just a different tool.

                    OpenSCAP is what I meant... I didn't know there was a difference between OpenSCAP and SCAP.

                    stacksofplatesS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • stacksofplatesS
                      stacksofplates @Obsolesce
                      last edited by

                      @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                      @stacksofplates said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                      @irj said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                      @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                      You'd think they would be running OpenVAS or SCAP or something similar instead of just scanning for patches that may or may not apply to the server...

                      What are you talking about? It only runs applicable scripts. Nessus is much better than either of those solutions.

                      I don't think it compares to SCAP. That's just hardening rules. I really like OpenSCAP it's just a different tool.

                      OpenSCAP is what I meant... I didn't know there was a difference between OpenSCAP and SCAP.

                      SCAP is the NIST stuff. OpenSCAP is the tool.

                      IRJI ObsolesceO 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • IRJI
                        IRJ @stacksofplates
                        last edited by

                        @stacksofplates said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                        @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                        @stacksofplates said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                        @irj said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                        @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                        You'd think they would be running OpenVAS or SCAP or something similar instead of just scanning for patches that may or may not apply to the server...

                        What are you talking about? It only runs applicable scripts. Nessus is much better than either of those solutions.

                        I don't think it compares to SCAP. That's just hardening rules. I really like OpenSCAP it's just a different tool.

                        OpenSCAP is what I meant... I didn't know there was a difference between OpenSCAP and SCAP.

                        SCAP is the NIST stuff. OpenSCAP is the tool.

                        You can also run NIST specific audits with nessus.

                        stacksofplatesS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • ObsolesceO
                          Obsolesce @stacksofplates
                          last edited by

                          @stacksofplates said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                          @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                          @stacksofplates said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                          @irj said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                          @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                          You'd think they would be running OpenVAS or SCAP or something similar instead of just scanning for patches that may or may not apply to the server...

                          What are you talking about? It only runs applicable scripts. Nessus is much better than either of those solutions.

                          I don't think it compares to SCAP. That's just hardening rules. I really like OpenSCAP it's just a different tool.

                          OpenSCAP is what I meant... I didn't know there was a difference between OpenSCAP and SCAP.

                          SCAP is the NIST stuff. OpenSCAP is the tool.

                          Ah, gotcha

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • stacksofplatesS
                            stacksofplates @IRJ
                            last edited by

                            @irj said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                            @stacksofplates said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                            @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                            @stacksofplates said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                            @irj said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                            @tim_g said in Had a vulnerability assessment with Nessus and it found hundreds of missing critical Windows OS updates from as far back as 2016 - is this even right?:

                            You'd think they would be running OpenVAS or SCAP or something similar instead of just scanning for patches that may or may not apply to the server...

                            What are you talking about? It only runs applicable scripts. Nessus is much better than either of those solutions.

                            I don't think it compares to SCAP. That's just hardening rules. I really like OpenSCAP it's just a different tool.

                            OpenSCAP is what I meant... I didn't know there was a difference between OpenSCAP and SCAP.

                            SCAP is the NIST stuff. OpenSCAP is the tool.

                            You can also run NIST specific audits with nessus.

                            Well it does some things I “think” Nessus doesn’t. It will scan VMs without an agent or logging in from the hypervisor. OpenSCAP also has all of RHELs gardening rules baked in like sysctl configs and things like AIDE.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • stacksofplatesS
                              stacksofplates
                              last edited by

                              Haha it’s only somewhat decent with gardening rules. It has many better hardening rules.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • IRJI
                                IRJ
                                last edited by

                                Here is an example of patching not being good enough. This needs an additional reg key.

                                https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2017-8529

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