Engineering Coursework About ZenMap and Nessus Tool (Coursework Sample)

ZenMap and Nessus Tool

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Introduction
When considering the network security scanners to use, one cannot overlook the NMAP and Nessus that can help in the process of examining the network security. Before they were introduced into the market, network administrators and those who deal with servers used to check the servers and networks manually to identify vulnerabilities. The manual process involved the use of TELNET or command console to enable them achieve the basic scans that would lead them to identifying the vulnerabilities. It prompted much of research that eventually led to the introduction of NMAP and Nessus in 1997 and 1998 respectively.
They serve the same purpose although they differ in terms of the functions that they accomplish. For the basic knowledge, the NMAP is used to map open ports of some hosts together with the hosts while the Nessus is a scanner that is vulnerable in the networking testing purposes. Nessus scans ports just like the NMAP, but it does that in a special way since it alerts the user of any potential security issues that can be attached to the ports that are scanned. It also helps in the process of identifying the presence of unforeseen hosts and services that can be dangerous to some network system. In addition, it helps the network and server administrators to know the type of host as well as if there is the presence of a firewall (Seagren, 2006).
Nessus is different from NMAP since it is a different class of tool in terms of availability. If one wants to use it for personal use, this device is free but for commercial use, for example, in an organization they need to buy it. For a single scanner, it is around $1200 per year in terms of the subscription fee. It has more advantage than NMAP since it can scan the system to find issues besides the primary function of network detection. It is also faster to do some functions when compared to NMAP, for example, the audit of security functions in an organization, the discovery of sensible data, the profiling of assets, or in the analysis of vulnerability issues in any organization (Rogers et al., 2008).
According to Rogers et al. (2008), Nessus works in a way that requires optimization with “plugins” that are to be updated on a daily basis. The plugins help in memory utilization since they do not require it in the operating system hence making Nessus execute its functions fast and efficiently. Here is some logic that can be applied to enable Nessus to u...