Linking Keys

Linking keys are secure tokens used to associate a Tenable Nessus Agent with a Tenable Nessus Manager or Tenable Vulnerability Management account. Traditional active scans originate from a Tenable Nessus scanner that reaches out to the hosts targeted for scanning, while agent scans run on hosts regardless of network location or connectivity and then report the results back to the manager (for example, Tenable Nessus Manager or Tenable Vulnerability Management) when network connectivity resumes.

Agents use linking keys to associate to the customer instance when the agent is first configured. Once the agent is associated with a customer, it maintains that association throughout the life of the agent. Therefore, if a linking key is regenerated, it does not affect agents that are already linked. If a linking key is regenerated, the old linking key can no longer be used to set up agents and you must use the new linking key.

For more information, see Retrieve the Nessus Agent Linking Key.

To secure your linking key, there are several sensor settings that you can enable to suit specific use cases such as FIPS mode, SSL ciphers, and local encryption requirements. For more information, see the Tenable Nessus User Guide.