Using a vulnerability assessment scanner (OpenVAS)

OpenVAS is the most famous open source vulnerability scanner available.

The software is mainly maintained as an open source project by Greenbone networks (www.greenbone.net) as part of their commercial suite of a vulnerability management solution.

This software is capable of testing an entire network to discover devices and then execute a plurality of actions to determine the Operating System (OS), ports, configurations, and software installed on the systems, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 13.4 – OpenVAS network scan structure

After that, OpenVAS can execute several checks to identify vulnerabilities on each of the identified components.

Authenticated tests

Part of the powerful options of OpenVAS is the capability to perform two types of tests: unauthenticated and authenticated testing.

An unauthenticated test is less invasive because it just tests general vulnerabilities...