Penetration Testing mailing list archives
RE: How do VA scans work technically
From: "Rivest, Philippe" <PRivest () transforce ca>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:19:52 -0400
Don't know if you got an answer for this. But yes, you should at all time double/triple verify the result of automated scans. You should do this in 2 separated operations 1- Identify false positive 2- Identify false negative Those are very important. It is very important to understand that a scanner may not get all the vulnerability (or take one as negative) and you will then say to your client "its all good!" when in fact its not. And theres also the "ITS SOOOOooo BAD" (false positive) when everything is good.
From my own experience, I remember running Nikto against my clients web
server and I got more or less 75-150 vulnerability & warnings. Years later I have yet to identify why, but only a very few were actual flaws & warning when I tested them manually. For your non standard port, this is how you should go about it. 1- Port scan the machine from 1 - 65536 2- All ports that are strange, "telnet ip port" "GET / HTTP/1.0" 3- If you get an answer from #2 you just identified a web server 4- Run your tools on that port If you disabled all the banners and such, I would go about reading the source code of your pages (just a few of them). I would try to identify default files that you left on the web server that could help me identify the web service. I would (of course) identify if it's a windows box or linux to try and *limit* the possibilities. Merci / Thanks Philippe Rivest, CEH Vérificateur interne en sécurité de l'information Courriel: Privest () transforce ca Téléphone: (514) 331-4417 www.transforce.ca Vous pourriez imprimer ce courriel, mais faire pousser un arbre c'est long. You could print this email, but it does takes a long time to grow trees. -----Message d'origine----- De : listbounce () securityfocus com [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com] De la part de Aseem Kumar Envoyé : 9 juillet 2008 04:52 À : pen-test () securityfocus com Objet : Re: How do VA scans work technically Hi, Thanks for all the gr8 replies. Showing of already remediated vulnerabilities was what i was concerned. So i always have to take the reports from these scans with a pinch of salt. They even might miss something. But what if i am running say a web server on a non-standard port and have really disabled all settings that might allow an outsider to get a banner or version number of underlying application then will the scanners still be able to do some heuristics and come out with nearly correct answers. Can someone point me to any link that will provide more insight into this process. Regards Aseem On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Killy <killfactory () gmail com> wrote:
Nessus can ne configured to perform safe scans. It will still for blank root, as and administrator passwords under that config. So, it depends on your definition of exploit :) Nessus can also be configured to prrerform brute force attacks using a
hydra
plugin/module You also perform thorough tests/scans. I have feeling that you are wanting to if nessus and qualys operate like metasploit, canvas or other exploit frameworks. I would say no. But nessusbis very flexible and you can customize It and create your own plugin to do just about anything. There is plenty of documentation and help online. Sent from my iPod On Jul 8, 2008, at 4:02 PM, "Aseem Kumar" <kumaraseem () gmail com> wrote:Hey, Can someone tell me (any weblink , any ebook, or direct answers) as to how the VA scans like those of Qualys or Nessus work? How do they find the vulnerabilities of a system without ever exploiting it? Regards Aseem ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This list is sponsored by: Cenzic Top 5 Common Mistakes in Securing Web Applications Get 45 Min Video and PPT Slides www.cenzic.com/landing/securityfocus/hackinar ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Current thread:
- How do VA scans work technically Aseem Kumar (Jul 08)
- RE: How do VA scans work technically Tariq Naik (Jul 08)
- Re: How do VA scans work technically Jason (Jul 09)
- RE: How do VA scans work technically Tariq Naik (Jul 16)
- Re: How do VA scans work technically Jason (Jul 09)
- Re: How do VA scans work technically Killy (Jul 08)
- Re: How do VA scans work technically Aseem Kumar (Jul 09)
- Re: How do VA scans work technically Todd Haverkos (Jul 09)
- AW: How do VA scans work technically puppe (Jul 10)
- RE: How do VA scans work technically Rivest, Philippe (Jul 10)
- Re: How do VA scans work technically Aseem Kumar (Jul 10)
- RE: How do VA scans work technically sandip (Jul 25)
- Re: How do VA scans work technically Aseem Kumar (Jul 09)
- Re: How do VA scans work technically Zed Qyves (Jul 22)
- RE: How do VA scans work technically Tariq Naik (Jul 08)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: How do VA scans work technically HITESH PATEL (Jul 09)