Tenable Network Security Releases Passive Vulnerability Scanner 3.2

Enhanced vulnerability discovery, real-time forensic and file share and database activity monitoring 

Tenable Network Security, Inc., the leader in Unified Security Monitoring™ and creator of the popular and award-winning Nessus^® vulnerability scanner, is proud to announce the release of version 3.2 of the Passive Vulnerability Scanner (PVS). Tenable’s PVS is a passive technology that monitors network traffic and provides real-time vulnerability data to Tenable’s SecurityCenter management console. In addition, Tenable’s PVS also collects real-time user and forensic activity on the network. 

New Features

This release increases the ability of Tenable’s PVSs to decode complex protocols to find server and client vulnerabilities as well as adding many new forensic and activity monitoring functions. New features include but are not limited to: 

• Passive discovery of many client and server side vulnerabilities such as vulnerable ActiveX applications embedded on web servers
• Real-time logging of all file transfers and sharing via SMB, HTTP, FTP and NFS
• Real-time passive monitoring and logging of SQL database transactions from user and web server applications 

Database Activity Monitoring

PVS’s new capability to monitor networks for real-time SQL transactions enhances Tenable’s ability to perform security monitoring of databases. Tenable Network Security customers will not only be able to perform static vulnerability and configuration analysis of SQL servers with Nessus, they will also be able to monitor database activity in real-time to identify abuse.

Enhanced Forensics

Tenable’s PVS provides continuous passive auditing and discovery of networks. As hosts connect to the network, the hosts are automatically profiled and a majority of the host activity is logged to enable forensic analysis of any security event. 

“Tenable’s PVS allows gathering of a great deal of security and event data without requiring agents or excessive scanning,” said Tenable CEO, Ron Gula. “Since Tenable’s PVS is real-time, it allows for early detection of unauthorized network changes, discovering new types of software and identification of both server and client vulnerabilities.”