RE: Vulnerability scanners

["Michael Welch" <mdwelch () sendsecure com>]

About 4 months ago I performed a comparison of Qualys, Foundscan, and
Vigilante.  They all have there good and bad point's.  The nice things about
Qualys was that all you had to do is plug the appliance into your network
and you were ready to go.  My concern was that although your scan data was
transferred via https it was stored on another companies network.  Being a
security professional I have a hard time allowing my internal network
scanning results sitting on another's network.

-----Original Message-----
From: Paris Stone [mailto:paris () ciscoinstructor net]
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2003 5:25 PM
To: Alex Russell; Jeff Williams @ Aspect; Dan Lynch;
pen-test () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: Vulnerability scanners


The Qualys box is an appliance that is configured once.  It connects out
your
firewall using SSL (TCP 443) to hit Qualys's web/scanner server.  It then
retrieves
the information(database of exloits, etc...) and runs them against your
internal
network.  It then uploads the info to their database servers using SSL.
Then all
of your information is available via the web with nice reporting, pretty
graphics,
etc...  It breaks it down into reports for techies and reports for
non-techies
(CxO's) daily, weekly, monthly.  The economies thing is simply that you have
a
yearly subscription based upon number of hosts scanned.  A fixed cost,
24x7x365
tool that doesn't have HR or benefit issues and doesn't get kids sick and
have to
take days off.  It IS easy to setup and administration is easy for those who
can
RTFM.

Alex Russell (alex () netWindows org) wrote:
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> On Thursday 27 March 2003 12:58 pm, Jeff Williams @ Aspect wrote:
> > Let's assume that you're talking about 256 IPs (based on Qualys'
> > published pricing), and you want to scan weekly.  That's at least a day a
> > week of effort for someone (probably more to generate a very nice report
> > and summaries).  The cost of a full-time sysadmin (including salary,
> > benefits, office, etc...) probably costs well north of $100K.  You'd have
> > to include some equipment costs in there.  So I doubt you could do it
> > much cheaper. I think vulnerability scanning is a reasonable thing to
> > outsource for companies that are not in the security or networking field
> > already.
>
> This sounds like a false economy to me.
>
> First: how does the Qualis box remove the need for a sysadmin? It's just
one
> more appliance to manage, and something your existing admin should be able
> to do anyway. And if you already didn't have an admin, you'd need one now
> that you're thinking in terms of security. No extra cost here (aside from
> incremental admin time).
>
> Secondly: if you've got a trained monkey doing your report generation, then
> you're right about the costs. If, however, you have a developer automate
> most of that, then you can add more nodes to be scanned at much lower
> incremental cost (change a config file). Additionally, using public
> signature sets may have downsides, but using Open Source tools is good both
> for your own internal flexiblity and for the world at large (checks aren't
> quite right? set that developer to work writing and contributing back
> better ones!).
>
> All in all, your initial costs to do it in house with smart people and Open
> Source tools might be higher, but your incremental costs do not grow at
> nearly the same rate. OTOH, if you don't have any admins or developers,
> then Qualys might look like a very nice option.
>
> HTH
>
> - --
> Alex Russell
> alex () netWindows org
> alex () SecurePipe com
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>
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--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Paris Stone
CISSP, CCNP, CNE/CNI, MCSE/MCT,
Master CIW Administrator, CIW Security Analyst, NSA
A+, Network+, iNet+
http://www.ciscoinstructor.net/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The rich man is not the one with the most, but the one who needs the least"



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top spam and e-mail risk at the gateway.
SurfControl E-mail Filter puts the brakes on spam & viruses
and gives you the reports to prove it. See exactly how much
junk never even makes it in the door. Free 30-day trial:
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