MN502 Network Security: Nessus and Nmap Tools Analysis Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of two prominent network security tools, Nessus and Nmap. It covers their download and installation processes, descriptions, and demonstrations of their capabilities. Nessus is highlighted for its vulnerability detection and web scanning options, while Nmap is praised for its network mapping and victim machine identification. The report compares the tools in terms of scanning capabilities, time consumption, and ease of use. A case study involving UVW organization, an educational institute with multiple sites and BYOD policies, is analyzed to determine the most suitable tool, concluding that Nmap is preferable due to its cost-effectiveness and security features. The report also includes a bibliography of relevant sources.

Running head: NETWORK ANALYZER
Network Analyzer
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author Note

1
NETWORK ANALYZER
1. Download and Installation of the Security Tools
For the report the two tools selected are Nessus and Nmap.
The downloading and installation process of the tools are provided in this section of the report.
Nessus
Download

2
NETWORK ANALYZER

3
NETWORK ANALYZER
Installation

4
NETWORK ANALYZER

5
NETWORK ANALYZER

6
NETWORK ANALYZER

7
NETWORK ANALYZER

8
NETWORK ANALYZER

9
NETWORK ANALYZER

10
NETWORK ANALYZER

11
NETWORK ANALYZER
Nmap
Download

12
NETWORK ANALYZER

13
NETWORK ANALYZER
Installation

14
NETWORK ANALYZER

15
NETWORK ANALYZER

16
NETWORK ANALYZER

17
NETWORK ANALYZER

18
NETWORK ANALYZER
2. Description of the Security Tools
Nessus:
The Nessus professional tool is used for the detecting vulnerabilities in the network and
prevents the attackers from entering into the system. The tool is very effective and easy to use for
the users. There are a lot of features in Nessus beyond the default scan used by most that are
highly useful. It also has some web scanning options that can be configured according to the
requirement of the users. The tool is basically free for the non-enterprise users. It is one of the
world’s most popular vulnerability scanner. The software is an open source software however,
the use of the advanced methods in the software would incur some costs to the users. The
software also helps in the identification of the other weakness of the systems of the computer.
This would also help in the development of the efficiency of the systems.
Nmap:
Nmap is also a tool similar to the Nessus tool that helps in the analysis of the network and
also helps in the security analysis of any type of network. The tool generally works by building a
map for the network and provides an efficient mapping of the network so that any anomalies can
be identified easily from the map. The victim machines can also be found very easily by the use
of Nmap. The software also helps the users in locating the victim machines and gathering useful
information about the victim machines of the system. Hence, this defines the usefulness of the
software.
3. Demonstration of Security Tools
Nessus

19
NETWORK ANALYZER
The software is very good in providing information about the platform and network
device vulnerabilities. The tool is used for the overall strategy of the network as well. The
software provides an excellent aspect of database scanner, application scanner and source code
scanner that helps the user in detection of the anomalies in the network. The DROWN plugins
enabled in Nessus detects CVE-2016-0800 vulnerability which is a cross protocol vulnerability
that enables an attacker to decrypt TLS connections between up-to-date clients and servers by
sending packets to any server that supports SSLv2 using the same private key.
Nmap
The software can be used for both the mitigation of threats and also helps in the
monitoring of the system. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are
available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering,
what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls
are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, but
works fine against single hosts.
4. Comparison of the Tools
The comparison for both the tools have been provided in the section provided below:
i. The primary functions of the Nessus software is to provide the system with the scanning
capabilities of the system. However, unlike Nmap the software can be perform software
scans and the software was designed for the vulnerability checks of the system whereas
Nmap only provides the users with the options of mapping the network and scan the
whole network.

20
NETWORK ANALYZER
ii. In terms of time consumption Nmap is faster than Nessus as Nessus traverses through the
layers parsing through the different layers. To save time the Nessus software makes use
of multiple instances so that the user can be relieved of time loss.
iii. The Nmap software is a tool that provides a better ease of use for the user, whereas
Nessus does not provide the same ease of access for the users however, the Nessus
software provides an efficient amount of procedures for the users.
5. Analysis of the provided scenario
The case study provided for the report deals with the UVW organization which is an educational
institute where the sites are located at three sites for the organization that are Brisbane, Adelaide
and Hobart. The servers for the organization are located in Brisbane additionally it has been
provided that the organization has 5 department which consists of 60 employees in total. The
staffs need communication among themselves and the staffs are required to bring their own
devices in the office premises. The organization is required to main confidentiality and the main
criteria of the organization is to achieve a high level of security within a short budget allocated to
them.
The staffs and the students bring their own devices to the premises and the students also get
connected to the network and they contact their friends from the network of the institute. There
lies the risk of the systems of the organizations getting hacked and the network information
being procured by some external agents. This would result in the network security being
compromised and the network being subjected to external intrusion.
The Nmap software is the preferable tool for the organization as the tool comes at a very low
budget and maintains a high level of security for the institution. The Nessus software does not

21
NETWORK ANALYZER
provide a free version for the Enterprises and the features of the software are very costly and
hence Nmap is the more preferred tool that is be used for the institution.
The main reason behind using Nmap is that we can perform reconnaissance over a target
network. In addition to this Port scans in Nmap are loud. There are ways to make port scans
more stealthy included with Nmap, but they always require generating a whole lot of network
traffic, and there is an inverse relationship between stealth and speed. But to do anything which
doesn’t come with Nmap libraries requires the user to master the software for long period of
time and the system takes a lot of time depending on the extent to which the user wants to
intrude into the system, however the selection is done based on the cost effectiveness of the tool.

22
NETWORK ANALYZER
Bibliography
[1] Antrobus, R., Frey, S., Green, B. and Rashid, A., August. Simaticscan: Towards a specialised
vulnerability scanner for industrial control systems. BCS, 2016.
[2] Arambatzis, T., Lazaridis, I. and Pouros, S., May. Modern Windows Server Operating
Systems Vulnerabilities. In The Third International Conference on Computer Science, Computer
Engineering, and Social Media (CSCESM2016) (p. 29), 2016.
[3] Calderon, P. Nmap: Network Exploration and Security Auditing Cookbook. Packt Publishing
Ltd, 2017.
[4] Coffey, K., Smith, R., Maglaras, L. and Janicke, H. Vulnerability Analysis of Network
Scanning on SCADA Systems. Security and Communication Networks, 2018.
[5] Fifield, D., Geana, A., MartinGarcia, L., Morbitzer, M. and Tygar, J.D. October. Remote
operating system classification over IPv6. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM Workshop on Artificial
Intelligence and Security (pp. 57-67). ACM, 2015.
[6] Genge, B. and Enăchescu, C. ShoVAT: Shodan‐based vulnerability assessment tool for
Internet‐facing services. Security and communication networks, 9(15), pp.2696-2714, 2016.
[7] Helms, J., Salazar, B., Scheibel, P., Engels, M. and Reiger, C. Safe Active Scanning for
Energy Delivery Systems Final Report (No. LLNL-TR-740556). Lawrence Livermore National
Lab.(LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States) , 2017.