Re: Nessus, Harmful?

[Himanshu Goyal <idhimanshu () gmail com>]

There are few plugins for destructive attacks like DOS in NESSUS. You
need to make sure that they are unchecked before running the scan.

Regards,
Himanshu

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 3:45 AM, Shohn Trojacek <trojacek () gmail com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've brought down my fair share of devices using Nessus, so I would
> always advise the client as to the residual risk and if possible try
> to do this under a change request. Generally, I ask that a couple
> people be clued into my activities, but not to tell the entire IT
> department so as to spoil the testing if this is on a penetration
> test.
>
> I've had good success when running safe checks, disable DoS, etc.
>
> Once, several years ago I had hacked up nessus a bit into what could
> only be described as a "scanning cluster". I found that I was able to
> reboot Cisco catalyst switches about every 10 minutes when I had 16
> machines running scans in parallel. This is an extreme example though.
>
> I've had other scanners including various Web app scanners bring
> things down too. In some cases, I had a replication of the production
> environment and then scanned the "mock" production environement when
> availability was more concerning than confidentiality.
>
> Generally, I've found it better to just be straight forward and honest
> about the risks and this calms people. If you seem skittish, they will
> be too.
>
> Godspeed,
>
> Shohn
>
> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 11:17 PM, Zaki Akhmad <zakiakhmad () gmail com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I want to do a nessus scanning, but before I'd like to know is it
> > nessus scanning harmful? Because I don't want to make the server down.
> >
> > Thanks!
> > --
> > Zaki Akhmad
> >
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>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This list is sponsored by: Information Assurance Certification Review Board
>
> Prove to peers and potential employers without a doubt that you can actually do a proper penetration test. IACRB CPT 
> and CEPT certs require a full practical examination in order to become certified.
>
> http://www.iacertification.org
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------
This list is sponsored by: Information Assurance Certification Review Board

Prove to peers and potential employers without a doubt that you can actually do a proper penetration test. IACRB CPT 
and CEPT certs require a full practical examination in order to become certified. 

http://www.iacertification.org
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