Tenable Blog

Not All ‘Cybers’ Are Created Equally

by Susan Brown on February 29, 2012

By Marcus Ranum, Tenable CSO

What do these four terms have in common?

Cyberwar, Cybercrime, Cyberespionage, and Cyberterror.

They all start with the word ‘Cyber’
They’re all bad stuff
And they’re all consistently confused with each other, despite significant differences (and sometimes conflicts) between them

Many people already know my position on ‘Cyberwar’ but things have changed significantly over the past four years in IT and physical security, technology, the government, and the military. The actual ‘Cyber’ landscape is much more nuanced than many seem to realize, which has created an unnecessary public perception of extreme vulnerability (which can lead to fear, which can be dangerous).

Three Types of Client-side Exploits

by Ron Gula on February 28, 2012

We often hear about vulnerabilities in client software, such as web browsers and email applications, that can be exploited by malicious content. The repeated stories about botnets, infected web sites, and viruses which infect us with malicious documents, movies, and other content have ingrained the concept of an exploitable client in our minds. Unfortunately, client software can also be targeted with attacks from compromised servers accessed by the clients, and some client software actually listens for connections. In this blog entry, we will discuss auditing client software for vulnerabilities and describe the three different types of client-side exploits and how they can impact the risk of your network.

At RSA: New data reinforces intimate stories of career stress and burnout

by Jack Daniel on February 24, 2012

In the last year, I’ve been part of a panel of security experts that has gathered at various security events to share what we’ve learned about stress and burnout in the IT security industry, and to help people identify when they, or somebody they know, are at risk. We’ve conducted surveys to find out more about these risks and their causes, but the heart of these sessions are the compelling anecdotes from the security professionals who share personal stories of depression or anger, as well as their scars, both emotional and physical.

Our presentations and discussions have been a developing project, each session building off of what we learn at every event before it. I’ll be moderating a panel again on this topic at RSA, and we will be revealing original research on career burnout and the causes of stress for security professionals.

Using Nessus 5 to Raise the Value of Penetration Testing

by Ron Gula on February 23, 2012

Cross referencing the results of your vulnerability scans with the list of public exploits helps identify likely targets for authorized penetration testing teams. Removing these vulnerabilities significantly raises the value of a penetration test since the team will have to work much harder to find issues that aren’t found through automation. There are many subtle issues to consider when correlating available exploits with vulnerabilities. In this blog entry, we’ll highlight these issues by considering exploit correlation with attacks available from the Metasploit project, Core, and Immunity with the results of a very large Nessus scan of several thousand web servers.

Tenable Network Security Podcast Episode 114 - "0day exploit sales, software backdoors, Wifi everywhere"

by Paul Asadoorian on February 22, 2012

Hosts

Paul Asadoorian, Product Evangelist

Carlos Perez, Lead Vulnerability Researcher

Ron Gula, CEO/CTO

Announcements

Check out our video channel on YouTube that contains the latest Nessus and SecurityCenter 4 tutorials. The "Top Ten Things You Didn't Know About Nessus" videos have been posted from #10 through #2, so check them out!

We're hiring! - Visit the Tenable website for more information about open positions.

You can subscribe to the Tenable Network Security Podcast on iTunes!

Tenable Tweets - You can find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tenablesecurity where we make product and company announcements, provide Nessus plugin statistics, and more!

Want to ask questions about Nessus, SecurityCenter, LCE, and PVS and get answers from the experts at Tenable? Join Tenable's Discussion Forum for custom scripts, announcements, and more!

New & Notable Plugins

Nessus:

LDAP 'Domain Admins' Group Membership Enumeration

PHP 5.3.9 'php_register_variable_ex()' Code Execution (intrusive check)

phpLDAPadmin lib/QueryRender.php base Parameter XSS

Passive Vulnerability Scanner:

Mozilla Firefox 10.x 10.0.2 'png_decompress_chunk' Integer Overflow

Mozilla SeaMonkey 2.x 2.7.2 'png_decompress_chunk' Integer Overflow

Mozilla Thunderbird 10.x 10.0.2 'png_decompress_chunk' Integer Overflow

Exploitable Since 2002: New Nessus 5 Filters

by Ron Gula on February 21, 2012

With Nessus 5, the results from a single vulnerability scan can be filtered to show which hosts have ancient vulnerabilities, which hosts aren’t being managed, and also which hosts have been exploitable for long periods of time. This blog entry discusses the new Nessus 5 filters, how they can be used to track high-risk vulnerabilities, and how enterprise users of Tenable SecurityCenter can leverage these filters for dashboards and asset-based reporting.

Tenable Network Security Podcast Episode 113 - "Nessus 5.0 New Features"

by Paul Asadoorian on February 16, 2012

Hosts

Paul Asadoorian, Product Evangelist

Carlos Perez, Lead Vulnerability Researcher

Ron Gula, CEO/CTO

Announcements

New iSeries and AS/400 plugins are being released this week!

Check out our video channel on YouTube that contains the latest Nessus and SecurityCenter 4 tutorials. The "Top Ten Things You Didn't Know About Nessus" videos have been posted from #10 through #2, so check them out!

We're hiring! - Visit the Tenable website for more information about open positions.

You can subscribe to the Tenable Network Security Podcast on iTunes!

Tenable Tweets - You can find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tenablesecurity where we make product and company announcements, provide Nessus plugin statistics, and more!

Want to ask questions about Nessus, SecurityCenter, LCE, and PVS and get answers from the experts at Tenable? Join Tenable's Discussion Forum for custom scripts, announcements, and more!

New & Notable Plugins

Nessus 5.0 Released!

by Paul Asadoorian on February 13, 2012

New Features

Nessus version 5.0 introduces key features and improvements, separated into the four major phases of the vulnerability scanning process:

Installation and management (for enhanced usability)

Scan policy creation and design (for improved effectiveness)

Scan execution (for improved efficiency)

Report customization and creation (for improved communication with all parts of the organization).

We've created a video showcasing the new features in Nessus 5.0 listed above:

Below you can find a more detailed list of the new features added to Nessus 5.0:

New IBM iSeries Audit Policy

by Paul Asadoorian on February 13, 2012

A new configuration auditing policy designed to test IBM Systems against the iSeries Security Reference Version 5 Release 4 is now available on the Tenable Support Portal.

Users can log into the Tenable Support Portal to obtain this audit policy. The file is called "IBM v5 r4 iseries security reference" and is located in the "IBM iSeries Configuration Audits" section.

To use this audit policy, update the plugins and create a new policy to perform compliance checks against an AS400 system.

Iseries preferences

Real-time Enterprise Exploitability Trending

by Ron Gula on February 13, 2012

Penetration tests are typically a point-in-time exercise to determine if a remote adversary or malicious insider can compromise systems that contain sensitive data. Most organizations do not conduct penetration tests on a daily basis. Instead they schedule them annually, quarterly, or in some cases monthly. Penetration tests procured on a consulting engagement are often limited to key systems and assets rather than the entire network of systems. This diminishes the value of the penetration test as the results quickly become outdated and may not be relevant to new systems or recent network changes. However, by correlating the availability of exploits with a continuous monitoring program to identify vulnerabilities, an organization can have a better idea of how “exploitable” they are on a real-time basis.

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