performing-vulnerability-scanning-with-nessus

# Performing Vulnerability Scanning with Nessus ## When to Use - Conducting initial vulnerability assessment during the reconnaissance phase of a penetration test - Performing periodic vulnerability scans to maintain compliance with PCI-DSS (requirement 11.2), HIPAA, or SOC 2 standards - Validating that remediation efforts have successfully addressed previously identified vulnerabilities - Establishing a baseline of known vulnerabilities before targeted manual exploitation - Auditing patch compliance and configuration drift across server and workstation fleets **Do not use** as a substitute for manual penetration testing, against systems without written authorization, or against fragile systems (medical devices, legacy SCADA) where scanning may cause service disruption. ## Prerequisites - Tenable Nessus Professional or Nessus Expert with current plugin updates (plugins should be less than 24 hours old) - Network connectivity to all target hosts on all ports (no firewall restrictions between scanner and targets) - Administrative credentials for authenticated scanning (domain admin or local admin for Windows, root/sudo for Linux, SNMP community strings for network devices) - Target IP ranges and hostnames documented in the scope agreement - Change management approval for scanning during authorized windows ## Workflow ### Step 1: Scan Configuration Configure the Nessus scan policy based on engagement requirements: - **Scan type selection**: Choose "Advanced Scan" for fu...