Nessus Essentials Download: https://www.tenable.com/products/nessus/nessus-essentials
In the role of a Security Analyst/Vulnerability Analyst, I performed a vulnerability scan using Nessus Essentials on a Windows 10 64x Single Host and remediated the following vulnerabilities.
• Software/Tools used: VMware, Nessus, Windows Firewall
Vulnerabilities remediated during this process: (Scroll to see a comparison photo of the scan results after remediation!)
• Windows OS Version (Outdated) -------> Updated to the most recent version of Windows 10 OS
• Microsoft Edge (Chromium) < 118.0.2088.102 / 119.0.2151.58 (CVE-2023-36027) (Outdated) -------> Updated to the most recent version of Microsoft Edge: version 119.0.2151.58
• Curl 7.69 (Outdated) -------> Updated to the latest curl version via Windows 10 OS Update.
(Disabled VM Firewall to make the VM pingable, then performed an uncredentialed scan with Nessus)
Note: As you may notice, with a credentialed scan, Nessus was able to perform a more in-depth vulnerability scan. Security Analysts use credentialed scans instead of uncredentialed scans to better identify weak configurations, missing patches, and similar vulnerabilities. Which in turn, further strengthens the security posture of the network.
1st Step: Open your Windows VM then, enable and start the remote registry to automatically allow Nessus to connect and do a deeper credentialed scan of the machine.
2nd Step: Ensure that "file and printer sharing" is enabled on your windows VM.
3rd Step: Open up RegistryEditor and follow the path, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > Windows > Current Version > Policies > System, and create a new policy "LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy" and set the value to 1.
4th Step: Proceed back to Nessus on your main machine, and configure your current scan to allow a Windows credentialed scan on your Windows system and authenticate using "Password", enter your Windows VM username and password and keep the default settings for the scan.
5th Step: Launch the vulnerability scan!
