Nessus now has Windows LAPS Support
Summary: Nessus now has the ability to leverage accounts managed by Microsoft Windows LAPS. How LAPS works: Since LAPS managed accounts have their passwords rotated routinely, users cannot just directly provide the credentials in their Scan Policy. Before this change, users would instead have to make an additional privileged account on each LAPS enabled Host to provide to Nessus. Currently Nessus supports Entra LAPS allowing a scan to pull LAPS Managed Credentials from a customer’s remote Entra instance. Now, Nessus can do the same for Windows LAPS, allowing customers with local LAPS setups to gain the same benefits! Without Windows LAPS support, customers must make dedicated account for Nessus to use to scan targets Change: With this LAPS support change, during the startup phase of a scan, Nessus will reach out to a customer provided Domain Controller hosting an AD forest with LAPS enabled, and pull a list of all Local Admin Accounts for devices managed by LAPS. Nessus will then attempt to use these retrieved LAPS managed accounts as credentials when attempting to access a target host. With Windows LAPS Support, Customers need only provide a single Credential that allows Nessus to retrieve the actual credentials for LAPS Managed Devices How to enable it: To make use of Nessus’ Windows LAPS support, a customer needs only to provide the necessary info to their scan/policy via the Windows LAPS Credential. They’ll need to provide us the IP of the DC, Credentials for an account on that DC with the necessary permissions*, and the DistinguishedName of the OU that contains their LAPS managed devices. *The Account for retrieving Windows LAPS credentials needs the following permissions General Recommend the Account be added to the BUILTIN/Administrators AD Group as it grants all required permissions, including: Access to the $Admin Able to log on to the DC remotely Able to run Powershell WMI and DCOM access to Root/CIMV2 WMI Namespace LAPS Permissions LapsADReadPasswordPermission rights to the LAPS OU Be an Authorized Password Decryptor in the LAPS GPO (without this, Nessus will not be able to retrieve passwords protected by LAPS Encryption). Members of the Domain Administrators group are Authorized Password Decryptors by default. For additional information see: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/laps/laps-overview Impact: Customers using Rotating Host passwords managed through Microsoft Windows LAPS can now leverage these credentials in their Nessus scans for more secure scanning configurations. Target Release Date: Nessus, T.VM On/About 09 JUN 2025 T.SC TBDResearch Release Highlight - SSH Session Reuse
Summary Nessus scan will support an opt-in feature to reuse SSH sessions during a scan where possible when running Nessus versions 10.9.0 and greater. This update was made in response to numerous customer requests for reducing the number of new SSH connections established during remote network scans and the associated increase in network traffic. Change A new scan configuration template option will be available for customers to actively enable the [Reuse SSH connections] configuration in their scan policies in Advanced Settings under Advanced Performance Options. Customers can return to the classic SSH connection functionality by changing [Reuse SSH connections] to the default “off” setting in their scan policies. Customers must be running a version of Nessus 10.9.0 or greater that supports this feature and have a Plugin Feed that displays the scan configuration policy user interface and NASL plugin set with the SSH session reuse functionality. Impact Customers should see a significant decrease in the total number of SSH sessions established during a Nessus scan as well as a reduction in load on Enterprise authorization, access, and accounting (AAA) tooling such as RADIUS servers and other connection management services. There should be no difference in scan results between scans that leverage SSH Session Reuse and scans that do not. If customers experience any such issues, the feature can easily be toggled off to return SSH connections during scans to the classic connection functionality. Target Release Date January 15, 2026
Improved Printer Fingerprinting
Summary This document addresses an issue where network printers generate unnecessary prints when scanned, even with the "Don't Scan Printers" setting enabled. The fix involves improving the SNMP identification process for printers by falling back to default community strings and ports if an incorrect community string is initially configured. Background Currently, if a customer configures an incorrect SNMP v1/v2(c) community string for a device, Plugin ID 11933 / "Do not scan printers" fails to revert to using well-known, default SNMP v1/v2(c) community strings and ports, unlike other plugins. This failure can prevent accurate identification of network printers, leading to them being scanned and in some cases, may inadvertently queue print jobs on printers Impact The following assumes the user has enabled the "Do not scan printers" setting in their scan policy and the network printer is correctly identified as such: Potential Decrease in Reported Vulnerabilities: Network printers will be less heavily scanned, potentially leading to a decrease in reported vulnerabilities related to these devices. Slight Increase in Packet Traffic: There will be an increase of approximately three packets per host as the system attempts fallback SNMP connections. Printers Marked as "Dead": Network printers that are successfully identified via SNMP will be marked as "dead" and will not be scanned further. This change aims to enhance the effectiveness of identifying network printers using SNMP, thereby reducing unnecessary and potentially damaging traffic directed at these devices. The resulting decrease in reported vulnerabilities is an expected outcome, as identified printers will no longer be subjected to heavy scanning. Users can continue to scan network printers by enabling the "Scan Network Printers" setting under “Host Discovery -> Fragile Devices -> Scan Network Printers” in the scan policy. This ensures that printers are scanned and not marked as dead, irrespective of fingerprinting. Affected Plugins 11933 ( "Do not scan printers") Affected Scan Policy Settings Discovery -> Host Discovery -> Fragile Devices -> Scan Network Printers Tenable Security Center Tenable Vulnerability Management Tenable Nessus Target Release Date: Monday, September 15, 2025
Include/Exclude Path and Tenable Utils Unzip added to Log4j Detection
Summary Tenable has updated the Apache Log4j detection plugins. The Windows plugin will now honor the Include/Exclude Filepath configuration option. The Linux/UNIX plugin will now use the version of ‘unzip’ supplied with the Nessus Agent, when enabled in the Agent’s configuration, and correctly inspect the MANIFEST.MF and pom.properties files. Change Before this update, plugin 156000, Apache Log4j Installed (Linux / Unix), would fail to detect Log4j in specific scan scenarios. The plugin uses several inspection methods to determine if a JAR file is a copy of Log4j. During Nessus Agent scans, as well as scans with ‘localhost’ as a target, the plugin was not properly executing the unzip command to inspect META-INF/MANIFEST.MF and pom.properties files in the JAR archive. If this method was the only option that would result in a successful detection, the copy of Log4j would not be detected properly. In addition, the plugin had failed to launch the unzip binary supplied with the Agent when inspecting files in JAR archives. Note: The Nessus Agent can be configured to use find and unzip binaries that it provides, instead of those supplied by the asset’s operating system. See https://docs.tenable.com/vulnerability-management/Content/Scans/AdvancedSettings.htm#Agent_Performance_Options for more information. Also before this update, plugin 156001, Apache Log4j JAR Detection (Windows), would fail to honor the directories included or excluded for full-disk searches configured in the Windows Include Filepath and Windows Exclude Filepath directives in the Advanced Settings of a scan config. Note: Configuration of these options is described in https://docs.tenable.com/vulnerability-management/Content/Scans/AdvancedSettings.htm#Windows_filesearchOptions. After this update, plugin 156000 will use the Agent-supplied copy of unzip when configured to do so. If this option is not enabled in the scan config, the plugin will use the existing method to find and execute an archive utility supplied by the asset’s operating system. In either case, the plugin will properly inspect Log4j’s MANIFEST.MF and pom.properties files as a version source. Plugin 156001 already properly inspects these files. Also after this update, plugin 156001’s Powershell code will now honor directories included or excluded by the Filepath directives. Plugin 156000 already supported this feature. Impact When scanning Linux / UNIX assets via 'localhost' (i.e. scanning the scanner itself) or with the Nessus Agent, additional Log4j instances from MANIFEST.MF or pom.properties sources may be reported. For Linux Nessus Agents with "Use Tenable supplied binaries for find and unzip" enabled and "Agent CPU Resource Control - Scan Performance Mode" set to Low, plugin 156000 will now properly limit CPU usage during scans. As noted in the product documentation, “Note: Setting your process_priority preference value to low could cause longer running scans. You may need to increase your scan-window timeframe to account for this value.” Customers should be aware of this configuration setting and potential changes to the results provided in the Log4J detection results. When scanning Windows targets, Log4j JAR files stored in paths specified in the Windows Exclude Filepath configuration will no longer be detected. Log4j JAR files stored in paths or drives specified in the Windows Include Filepath configuration that had not been previously scanned will now be detected, assuming they can be assessed before the plugin’s configured timeout has been reached. Plugins 156000 - Apache Log4j Installed (Linux / Unix) 156001 - Apache Log4j JAR Detection (Windows) Target Release Date September 1, 2025Python Package Enumeration - Detection Updates
Summary Tenable has updated the Python package enumeration plugins to reduce false positives and to better identify vulnerabilities when multiple packages are present on the scan target. Change Before this update, the Python package enumeration plugins did not attempt to associate detected packages with an RPM or DEB package managed by the Linux distribution. This would cause some packages to report vulnerabilities both based on a Linux distribution vendor’s advisory and a CVE advisory from the Python package maintainer. In addition, some Python packages present through symbolic links (“symlinks”) on a scan target’s filesystem would report as separate files, instead of a single actual file. Finally, some vulnerability plugins did not correctly report when multiple vulnerable Python packages were present on a scan target. After this update, these issues have been addressed. Vulnerable Python packages on Linux assets will be assessed to determine if they are managed by a Linux distribution’s package manager, and if so, will be marked as “Managed” and will not report a vulnerability, unless the Show potential false alarms setting is enabled for the scan. Vulnerable Python packages detected will be assessed to determine if they are files or symlinks, and only the actual file will be reported. However, if multiple actual files are present, vulnerability detection plugins will correctly report all instances. Impact Most customers will notice a reduction in the volume of Python package vulnerabilities reported. Some scan results may show an increase in detected vulnerabilities if multiple independent installs of a Python package are present on a scan target, but this is much less likely. Detection plugins 181215 Python Installed Packages (Windows) 164122 Python Installed Packages (Linux/UNIX) 186173 Apache Superset Installed (Linux / Unix) 196906 AI/LLM Software Report 171433 Apache Airflow Installed (Linux / Unix) 201192 Horovod Detection 198067 Intel Neural Compressor Library Detection 201189 Keras Detection 201190 NumPy Detection 205587 H2O Detection 205584 LangChain Detection 205585 LLama.cpp Python Bindings Detection 206880 MLflow Detection 205586 OpenAi Detection 214312 AWS RedShift Python Connector Detection 205590 Seaborn Detection 205589 Tensorboard Detection 205588 Theano Detection 237200 Tornado Detection 206027 ZenML Detection 200977 PyTorch Detection 201193 Ray Dashboard Detection 201191 Scikit-learn Detection 195192 TensorFlow Detection 195203 Microsoft Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI) Installed (Linux) 208299 DeepSpeed Detection 208127 AIM Detection 208134 BentoML Detection 208126 Google AI Platform (VertexAI SDK) Detection 213710 Gradio Detection 208129 H2O-3 Detection 208135 H2OGPT Detection 208137 Kedro Detection 241433 Model Context Protocol (MCP) Detection 208131 MLRun Detection 208132 Neptune AI SDK Detection 208140 Ollama Detection 208136 Prefect Detection 208139 PySpark Detection 208138 Microsoft RD-Agent Detection 208141 Tensorflow-hub Detection 208130 NVIDIA TensorRT Detection 208133 Weights & Biases Detection 208128 Weights & Biases Weave Detection Vulnerability plugins 210056 NumPy 1.9.x < 1.21.0 Buffer Overflow 210055 NumPy < 1.22.0 Vulnerability - CVE-2021-34141 210057 NumPy < 1.22.2 Null Pointer Dereference 210054 NumPy < 1.19 DoS 213084 Pandas DataFrame.query Code Injection (Unpatched) 211464 torchgeo Python Library < 0.6.1 RCE 192941 Dnspython < 2.6.0rc1 DoS 193912 aioHTTP < 3.9.4 XSS 211644 aioHTTP 3.10.6 < 3.10.11 Memory Leak 211645 aioHTTP < 3.10.11 Request Smuggling 206721 Jupyterlab Python Library < 3.6.8 / 4.0 < 4.2.5 (CVE-2024-43805) 206977 LangChain Experimental Python Library <= 0.0.14 (CVE-2023-44467) 206722 Jupyter Notebook Python Library 7.0.0 < 7.2.2 (CVE-2024-43805) 212710 Pdoc Python Library <= 14.5.1 (CVE-2024-38526) 187972 PyCryptodome < 3.19.1 Side Channel Leak 193202 PyMongo < 4.6.3 Out-of-bounds Read 213287 python-libarchive Python Library <= 4.2.1 Directory Traversal (CVE-2024-55587) 204790 Python Library Certifi < 2024.07.04 Untrusted Root Certificate 206676 Python Library Django 4.2.x < 4.2.16 / 5.0.x < 5.0.9 / 5.1.x < 5.1.1 Multiple Vulnerabilities 214945 Python Library Django 4.2.x < 4.2.18 / 5.0.x < 5.0.11 / 5.1.x < 5.1.5 DoS 237889 Python Library Django 4.2.x < 4.2.22 / 5.1.x < 5.1.10 / 5.2.x < 5.2.2 Log Injection 194476 SAP BTP Python Library sap-xssec < 4.1.0 Privilege Escalation 200807 urllib3 Python Library < 1.26.19, < 2.2.2 (CVE-2024-37891) 242322 aioHTTP < 3.12.14 Request Smuggling (CVE-2025-53643) 234572 Microsoft Azure Promptflow Python Library promptflow-core < 1.17.2 RCE 234573 Microsoft Azure Promptflow Python Library promptflow-tools < 1.6.0 RCE 241329 Python Library Pillow 11.2.x < 11.3.0 Write Buffer Overflow Target Release Date November 10, 2025Machine Learning SinFP Model Updates for OS Fingerprinting
Summary Updates have been released for the Tenable MLSinFP model, which predicts a host's OS based on SinFP fingerprints, by rebuilding it on a newer tech stack, incorporating new features, and using a larger dataset, resulting in improved accuracy of 67%. Change Before this update, plugin 132935 “OS Identification: SinFP with Machine Learning” was targeting operating systems commonly seen up to January 2021; consequently any newer OSs were not available as predictions. Additionally, the plugin solely relied on TCP header information for model features. After this update, the plugin targets operating systems commonly seen up to May 2025. Additionally the training dataset is larger (was 700K records, now 1.8M) and more varied (was 6K distinct SinFP fingerprints, now 100K), the predicted OSs names are cleaner and more consistent, and model features other than TCP header information are relied on. Ultimately these changes resulted in the plugin's balanced accuracy increasing to 67% (was 54%). Impact Remote detection of operating systems based on the MLSinFP method will have a slightly higher confidence score. Assets whose operating system was determined based on this method might have a different detected operating system. Plugins 132935 - OS Identification: SinFP with Machine Learning Target Release Date October 27, 2025Node.js Module Enumeration Detection Updates
Summary Tenable has updated the Node.js module enumeration plugins to reduce false positives and to better identify vulnerabilities when multiple packages are present on the scan target. Change Before this update, the Node.js module enumeration plugins did not attempt to associate detected packages with an RPM or DEB package managed by the Linux distribution. This would cause some packages to report vulnerabilities both based on a Linux distribution vendor’s advisory and a CVE advisory from the Node.js module maintainer. In addition, some Node.js installations on macOS that originated from third-party package managers, or from source, were not detected by the Node.js detection plugin. This would prevent the Node.js module enumeration plugin from running on those macOS assets. In some cases, a large volume of Node.js modules detected would cause the enumeration plugin to crash when attempting to report the list of modules in plugin output. After this update, these issues have been addressed. Vulnerable Node.js modules on Linux assets will be assessed to determine if they are managed by a Linux distribution’s package manager, and if so, will be marked as “Managed” and will not report a vulnerability, unless the Show potential false alarms setting is enabled for the scan. Node.js installs on Windows and macOS that were not previously detected due to the installation method will now be detected, and their installed modules will be enumerated. The module enumeration plugins will no longer report the list of detected modules in plugin output; rather, they will use only internal storage mechanisms to record the detected modules, so that Node.js vulnerability plugins can continue to use that data for version checks. Impact Most customers will notice a reduction in the volume of Node.js module vulnerabilities reported. Some Windows and macOS scan results may show an increase in detected vulnerabilities if Node.js was not previously detected based on the installation method. If a large number of modules is present on a scan target and had previously caused the plugin to malfunction and report no vulnerabilities, those targets may show previously unreported vulnerabilities, as the module enumeration plugin would now complete and allow the vulnerability plugins to execute. Plugins affected 200172 - Node.js Modules Installed (Windows) 179440 - Node.js Modules Installed (macOS) 178772 - Node.js Modules Installed (Linux) 110839 - Node.js Installed (Windows) 142903 - Node.js Installed (macOS) Target Release Date January 5, 2026Improved Resource Management Control
Summary Improved resource management control for plugins leveraging Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on Nessus Agent 11.1.0 or higher. Impact Customers with Nessus Agent 11.1.0 and later versions will have the ability to granularly control the CPU resources consumed during scans. This update ensures that plugins respect the resource usage setting selected during scan configuration by launching commands as children of the Nessus Agent, rather than invoking them via WMI. The release of these plugins will continue through January, with a phased approach over three weeks. The first release will be January 13th, the second January 20th, and the final planned plugin update on January 27th. Target Release Date Phase 1 plugin set: January 13, 2025 Phase 2 plugin set: January 20, 2025 Phase 3 plugin set: January 27, 2025Various Oracle Products: Patch Mapping Improvements
Summary Improvements have been made to how Nessus plugins determine the installed version of the following Oracle products: Oracle Business Process Management Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Oracle Analytics Server Oracle GoldenGate How Patch Mapping Works for these Oracle products Prior to these improvements, the product version was determined by mapping installed patch IDs to a version number based on a lookup/mapping table that we maintain and ship to scanners as part of the feed. Installed patches for most Oracle products, including Enterprise Manager Cloud Control and Agent, are enumerated in one of two possible ways: Linux Local Detections: oracle_enum_products_nix.nbin (plugin ID 71642, requires SSH credentials) Windows Local Detections: oracle_enum_products_win.nbin (plugin ID 71643, requires SMB credentials) Problem This process alone is sometimes problematic, as Oracle releases their patches in stages or sometimes outside of the regular CPU cadence. As our mapping table is manually maintained, some patches are not mapped in time for vulnerability plugin releases, which is a semi-automated process. We have had several instances where our mapping table was not updated in a timely manner - either because Oracle released a new patch ID in an out of band cycle or they released a patch ID that we do not have visibility on. If our scan fails to identify a patch ID that exists in our mapping table, only the base version is reported (e.g. 13.5.0.0.0), possibly resulting in False Positive findings. Improvements We have identified additional methods of determining the version number, including the patch level, without depending solely on the mapping tables. These Oracle detection plugins (see “Impacted Plugins” section below) will now attempt to determine the current patch version based on the Tenable managed static mapping table and also by parsing the description of the patches. Expected Impact Improved accuracy in version detections for these Oracle products, resulting in fewer false positives in downstream vulnerability detection plugins. Impacted Plugins 172516 - oracle_analytics_server_installed.nbin 123684 - oracle_goldengate_installed.nbin 76708 - oracle_bi_publisher_installed.nbin 136765 - oracle_bpm_installed.nbin 170905 - oracle_business_intelligence_enterprise_edition_installed.nbin All Oracle vulnerability plugins dependant upon the individual plugins listed above. Targeted Release Date Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 November 2025.Distinct Agent Plugin Databases for RPM-Based Distributions
Summary Tenable will now provide separate agent plugin databases for RPM-based Linux distributions. Impact Historically, the majority of plugins for RPM-based Linux distributions have all been distributed via a single artifact. Starting with Nessus Agent 11.1.0, Tenable will now publish separate artifacts based on the following plugin families: Alma Linux Local Security Checks CentOS Local Security Checks Miracle Linux Local Security Checks Oracle Linux Local Security Checks Red Hat Enterprise Linux Local Security Checks Rocky Linux Local Security Checks As a result, customers will see a reduction in the overall size of the agent database (15-31% reduction at rest, 7-14% downloaded), directly leading to smaller updates and reduced resource consumption during the update process. This improvement will be available to all customers using Agent 11.1.0 or later versions. Target Release Date January 13, 2026
