Compliance

Note: If a scan is based on a user-defined policy, you cannot configure Compliance settings in the scan. You can only modify these settings in the related user-defined policy.

Nessus can perform vulnerability scans of network services as well as log in to servers to discover any missing patches.

However, a lack of vulnerabilities does not mean the servers are configured correctly or are “compliant” with a particular standard.

You can use Nessus to perform vulnerability scans and compliance audits to obtain all of this data at one time. If you know how a server is configured, how it is patched, and what vulnerabilities are present, you can determine measures to mitigate risk.

At a higher level, if this information is aggregated for an entire network or asset class, security and risk can be analyzed globally. This allows auditors and network managers to spot trends in non-compliant systems and adjust controls to fix these on a larger scale.

When configuring a scan or policy, you can include one or more compliance checks, also known as audits. Each compliance check requires specific credentials.

Some compliance checks are preconfigured by Tenable, but you can also create and upload custom audits.

For more information on compliance checks and creating custom audits, see the Compliance Checks Reference.

Compliance Check	Required Credentials
Adtran AOS	SSH
Alcatel TiMOS	SSH
Amazon AWS	Amazon AWS
Arista EOS	SSH
Blue Coat ProxySG	SSH
Brocade FabricOS	SSH
Check Point GAiA	SSH
Cisco ACI	SSH
Cisco Firepower	SSH
Cisco IOS	SSH
Citrix XenServer	SSH
Database	Database
Dell Force10 FTOS	SSH
Extreme ExtremeXOS	SSH
F5	F5
FireEye	SSH
Fortigate FortiOS	SSH
Generic SSH	SSH
HP ProCurve	SSH
Huawei VRP	SSH
IBM iSeries	IBM iSeries
Juniper Junos	SSH
Microsoft Azure	Microsoft Azure
Mobile Device Manager	AirWatch, Apple Profile Manager, or Mobileiron
MongoDB	MongoDB
NetApp API	NetApp API
OpenStack	OpenStack
NetApp Data ONTAP	SSH
Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS	PAN-OS
Rackspace	Rackspace
RHEV	RHEV
Salesforce.com	Salesforce SOAP API
SonicWALL SonicOS	SSH
Unix	SSH
Unix File Contents	SSH
VMware vCenter/vSphere	VMware ESX SOAP API or VMware vCenter SOAP API
WatchGuard	SSH
Windows	Windows
Windows File Contents	Windows
ZTE ROSNG	SSH