Lately I’ve had this feeling of holy discontent worry about network security.  I think we do a good job of securing our network and servers, but… well… I don’t have anything that shows that.  Stack on the amount of time we proactively spend auditing network security and well… maybe I should worry.  What about you?

Recently I went on a hunt for some tools that could audit our network for known vulnerabilities.  We used these tools years ago when I worked for Honeywell.  I found a real gem in Nessus from Tenable Network Security.  This product is dead easy to install on Mac, Linux, or Windows, has thousands of security checks that are constantly updated, and is  dare I say fun to use.  And the best part… it’s only $1,200 per year for a feed of the latest audit checks… unless you’re a non-profit… then it’s FREE (just follow the instructions on their site to apply for the free license).

Running it on our servers brought up several issues that we needed to address.  Mainly some missing patches and software updates.  Each finding has a clear summary with solutions and links to vendor websites for more information.  It audits not only the operating system (all versions) but also web servers, database software, and much more.

Here’s a quick video on how to use the product.

I hope you’re able to get as much out of this product as we have this year.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Information Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.