To perform a full credentialed scan, Nessus needs the ability to connect to the remote registry service (RemoteRegistry).  If the service is down, this plugin will attempt to start for the duration of the scan.

You need to explicitly enable this option for this plugin to work:

  'Start the Remote Registry service during the scan'

In Tenable Nessus and Tenable Vulnerabilty Management (formerly Tenable.io), this option can be found under the following section in the scan policy:

  Credentials > Windows > Global Credential Settings.

In Tenable Security Center, this option can be found under the following section in the scan policy:

  Authentication > Windows.

This plugin just sets global variables (SID, SERVICE_NAME, etc.), and does not perform any security checks.

This plugin is an internal dependency used by several Nessus scripts. It does not perform anything by itself.

This plugin configures miscellaneous global variables for Nessus port scanners. It does not perform any security check.

The Nessus scanner testing the remote host has been given SMB credentials to log into the remote host, however these credentials do not have administrative privileges. 

Typically, when Nessus performs a patch audit, it logs into the remote host and reads the version of the DLLs on the remote host to determine if a given patch has been applied or not.  This is the method Microsoft recommends to determine if a patch has been applied. 

If your Nessus scanner does not have administrative privileges when doing a scan, then Nessus has to fall back to perform a patch audit through the registry which may lead to false positives (especially when using third-party patch auditing tools) or to false negatives (not all patches can be detected through the registry).

The remote host appears to be running Novell NetWare.  This operating system has a history of crashing or otherwise being adversely affected by scans.  As a result, the scan has been disabled against this host.

This script offers a way to control scanning of certain categories of network devices and hosts that are considered 'fragile' and might crash if probed.

This plugin configures various options and variables used by some Oracle plugins. 

By itself, it does not perform any security checks but may change the behavior of others.

OS Security Patch Assessment is not available for this host because either the credentials supplied in the scan policy did not allow Nessus to log into it or some other problem occurred.

This script just sets global variables (telnet/rexec/rsh logins and passwords) that are used to perform host-level patch level checks.

You should avoid using these cleartext protocols when doing a scan, as Nessus will basically broadcast the password to every tested host.

This script just sets global variables (SNMP community string and SNMP port) and does not perform any security checks.

This plugin displays, for each tested host, information about the scan itself :

  - The version of the plugin set.
  - The type of scanner (Nessus or Nessus Home).
  - The version of the Nessus Engine.
  - The port scanner(s) used.
  - The port range scanned.
  - The ping round trip time 
  - Whether credentialed or third-party patch management     checks are possible.
  - Whether the display of superseded patches is enabled
  - The date of the scan.
  - The duration of the scan.
  - The number of hosts scanned in parallel.
  - The number of checks done in parallel.

This plugin lets a user enter information about the Kerberos server that will be queried by some scripts (SMB and SSH) to log into the remote hosts.

This plugin initializes the SSH credentials as set by the user.

To set the credentials, edit your scan policy and go to the section 'Credentials'.

This plugin configures miscellaneous global variables for Nessus plugins. It does not perform any security checks but may disable or change the behavior of others.

The host seems to be an AppSocket or socketAPI printer.  Scanning it will likely waste paper.  Therefore, port 9100 won't be scanned.

The remote host appears to be a network printer, multi-function device, or other fragile device. Such devices often react very poorly when scanned. To avoid problems, Nessus has marked the remote host as 'Dead' and will not scan it.

This host has an IP address known to be a wildcard record for a top- level domain (TLD) or for a host within the 'nessus.org' domain.  It has been blacklisted and will not be scanned.

This plugin puts the content of cgibin() in the KB so that the function cgi_dirs() can work properly.

This script logs onto a web server through a login page and stores the authentication / session cookie.

This plugin sets various SMTP parameters because several checks need to use a third-party host/domain name in order to work properly. The checks that rely on this are SMTP or DNS relay checks. By default, 'example.edu' is being used for this purpose. However, under some circumstances, this may leak packets from your network to this domain, thus compromising the privacy of your tests. While the owner of example.edu is not known to keep logs of such packet traces, you may want to change this value to maximize your privacy.

Note that you absolutely need this option to be set to a third-party domain. This means a domain that has nothing to do with the domain name of the network you are testing.

This plugin configures Nessus so that it knows if it should query local information on each host or information pertaining to the domain (ie: requests will be forwarded to the PDC). 

If you test a single workstation, you want information about the domain.  If you test the whole network, including the PDC, you won't want redundant information. 

See the plugins preferences panel for details.

This plugin provides the username and password credentials for common servers, such as HTTP, FTP, NNTP, POP2, POP3, IMAP, IPMI, and SMB (NetBios).

Some plugins will use those credentials when needed. If you do not provide the credentials, those plugins will not be able to run.

Note that this plugin does not do any security checks.

ID	Name	Severity
35703	SMB Registry : Start the Registry Service during the scan	info
33815	Database settings	info
33813	Port scanner dependency	info
33812	Port scanners settings	info
24786	Nessus Windows Scan Not Performed with Admin Privileges	info
22482	Do not scan Novell NetWare	info
22481	Do not scan fragile devices	info
22076	Oracle Settings	info
21745	OS Security Patch Assessment Failed	info
21744	Cleartext protocols settings	info
19762	SNMP settings	info
19506	Nessus Scan Information	info
17351	Kerberos configuration	info
14273	SSH settings	info
12288	Global variable settings	info
12241	AppSocket & socketAPI Printers - Do Not Scan	info
11933	Do not scan printers	info
11840	Exclude top-level domain wildcard hosts	info
10308	Nessus Internal: Put cgibin() in the KB	info
11149	HTTP login page	info
11038	SMTP settings	info
10917	SMB Scope	info
10870	Login configurations	info

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