Free, open-source tool augments world’s most widely used network scanner with enhanced visualization, real-time CVE updates, and historical analysis capabilities
Vicarius, developers of the industry’s first fully autonomous end-to-end vulnerability remediation platform, has announced the release of a new free offering—Nmap Scan Analysis—to make vulnerability assessment, prioritization, and remediation available to security professionals, IT admins, and pentesters that utilize Nmap.
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Nmap can be found in nearly every network administrator’s arsenal, as one of the most versatile tools for port scanning, network discovery, and security auditing. Nmap helps security and IT professionals understand what hosts are available, what services they offer, the operating systems they’re running, and what software versions are running on each host. Network administrators praise Nmap for its speed, flexibility, and performance – though the scan results can be complex to interpret, especially as the scope of the network increases. By providing comprehensive data visualization, Vicarius hopes to augment what is already one of the most cherished resources in the security community.
With Nmap Scan Analysis, users import an XML file of an Nmap scan result directly into the Vicarius TOPIA dashboard. After the analysis is complete, users are presented with a comprehensive and visually coherent interpretation of their results, including open ports, services, operating systems, and detected CVEs. Users can access the tool for free on the company’s website.
“We’ve long believed in the value of open-source projects and the community that supports them,” said Michael Assraf, CEO, Vicarius. “This is an exciting way for us to give back and contribute to the Nmap legacy. With our integrated analysis, we are putting more resources and sound decision making in the hands of system and network administrators and leading the way for democratizing security tools.”
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There are many areas in which the tool helps security professionals identify high risk assets and understand where they are vulnerable. Devices that are typically not covered with traditional agent-based vulnerability assessment tools, such as printers and routers, can be key entry points for malicious actors. The Nmap Scan Analysis illuminates these problem areas effectively so system administrators can respond quickly.
“With the constant influx of new vulnerabilities, it’s almost impossible to stay on top of our assessments and understand where we are vulnerable. The Nmap scan analysis from Vicarius augments our capability to identify vulnerabilities in internal and unmanaged assets. Before, we didn’t have this type of intelligence, insight, and analysis. This tool has significantly improved our security posture,” said Charles Camello, Head of Infrastructure and Cybersecurity at Soprano.
In addition to coherent visualization that illuminates all aspects of the network, including vulnerabilities in unmanaged assets, Nmap Scan Analysis helps network administrators simplify the newfound complexities of managing decentralized assets, remote environments, and IoT devices. With accurate reporting, updated CVE results, and real-time information, system admins get a robust data set on which to base their decisions about security policy.
“Decentralized networks and working-from-home have made it more difficult to gain a thorough understanding of the assets in a network. As the security team, it’s crucial that we have an accurate inventory of our assets, operating systems, and vulnerabilities. With the rich Nmap visualization provided by Vicarius, we have eliminated the lack of coverage and feel more confident that we have our entire network under control,” said Alejandro Zamarripa Treviño, Information Security Analyst at Farmacias Benavides.
Additionally, with Nmap Scan Analysis, users are able to see the details of what has changed in their network from scan-to-scan, allowing them to stay on top of threats and raise security defense measures when necessary. The new offering stores all historical scans so security teams can reliably find, analyze, and resolve asset discrepancies in their network.
“Networks evolve over time and the changes they bring can impact the ability of the security team to act quickly and confidently. I’ve used Nmap before to perform security audits, but without a way to track our past scans, our analysis felt incomplete. With historical scan data at our fingertips, we have been able to make informed policy decisions to strengthen our security posture,” said Édipo Reis, Threat Intelligence Specialist at LionX.
Vicarius has made its Nmap scripts publicly available on its Github repository. Vicarius engineers will push code updates and new features directly to the open source project, so new enhancements will be available on a continual basis. With this community contribution, Nmap users can expect to receive better precision, dynamically updated CVE content, and daily CVE updates.
Vicarius prides itself as a community leader, prioritizing the release of free tools for security teams. The company developed a Research Center that provides free and unlimited access to the world’s CVE database, as well as information on vulnerable apps and operating systems. Additionally, Vicarius has provided CISOs and researchers a free Log4j detection tool without the need for 3rd party vendor involvement. Vicarius also has plans to establish a social network for security professionals to share remediation scripts and collaborate on vulnerability solutions.
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