Component Installs Require Paranoid Checks
Summary With this update, products that are deemed to be components of another application, will now require the scan to be run in paranoid mode to trigger generic vulnerability detection plugins. In this context, “generic vulnerability detection plugins” refers to plugins that cover advisories published by the component vendor (e.g., plugin ID 242325, SQLite < 3.50.2 Memory Corruption) rather than the operating system or “parent” application that distributes the component, either as a part of the operating system or a dependent tool of the parent application. Overview Tenable covers software that can be either installed as base level software, or be included as component software of a larger product installation. Base level software can be updated without any impact to the base product functionality. Component software is typically updated as part of the vendor update for the larger packaged product, and the individual components are not updatable. Non-paranoid scans will report base software vulnerabilities that are actionable. Paranoid scans will report on base software vulnerabilities as well component software vulnerabilities that are not actionable, but still package a potentially vulnerable version of the component. To enhance the accuracy of our vulnerability detection and provide users with greater control over scan results, we are implementing an update affecting how we flag vulnerabilities in software components. Our detection plugins for OpenSSL, Curl, LibCurl, Apache HTTPD, Apache Tomcat, SQLite, PHP, Python packages and Node.js modules can now identify when these packages are installed as components of another parent application (e.g., SQLite bundled with Trend Micro’s Deep Security Agent), rather than as standalone installs. Key Changes: Non-Paranoid Scans: Scans running in the default mode will no longer flag generic vulnerability detection plugins for these component installs. This is because vulnerabilities in components generally cannot be patched directly; users must wait for the parent application's vendor to issue an update. OS Vendor Advisories Unaffected: This change does not affect plugins for OS vendor security advisories that cover the same vulnerabilities (e.g., plugin ID 243452, RHEL 9 : sqlite (RHSA-2025:12522)). Paranoid Scans: For scans running in paranoid mode, generic vulnerability detection plugins will still trigger for component installs if the detected version is lower than the expected fixed version. Expected Impact: Customers running non-paranoid scans should anticipate seeing a reduction in potential vulnerability findings for OpenSSL, Curl, LibCurl, Apache HTTPD, Apache Tomcat, SQLite, PHP, Python packages and Node.js modules that are installed as components. Technical Details: The changes are entirely contained within two shared libraries, vcf.inc and vdf.inc, utilized by the affected plugins. This update impacts approximately 750 plugins specific to OpenSSL, Curl, LibCurl, Apache HTTPD, Apache Tomcat, and SQLite. Targeted Release Date: Friday, February 6, 2026
Compliance Windows Command Execution Enhancement
Summary The Windows Compliance Check plugin is implementing an updated library to run commands on Windows targets. The enhancements will include the following benefits. The plugin will improve on its handling of command timeouts. There were issues when long running commands would timeout on the scanner but leave temporary files on the target. This update will force long running checks to close when timing out and remove temporary files. The recently released improved resource management controls for Windows plugins on agents will now be extended to running audits. Potential Impacts: Tenable has gone to great lengths to ensure that the content that it publishes will operate and produce the same results that it always has. Customized audits may exhibit some changes due to the introduced job control of the command execution. These changes tend to be compliance checks that generate different results (failure instead of passing), or the actual values of the check have different text that would affect baseline scans. If custom content does exhibit these issues, strategies to work with the new library can be found in Compliance WMI Library Enhancement. Tenable Plugins 21156 - Windows Compliance Checks Target Release Date February 9, 2026Disable Red Hat repository correlations and strictly use package version checks
Summary With this update, users will now have the ability to disable the requirement to consider the enabled yum updated repositories before proceeding to package version checks to determine vulnerability status for Red Hat Local Security Checks plugins. This option can now be toggled on/off via the scan policy.To toggle this new feature in your scan policy, navigate to Settings > Advanced > Vulnerability Options and toggle "Disable RedHat repository correlations and strictly use package version checks" on/off as desired. Background To understand how Tenable's Red Hat Local Security Checks plugins currently work, please refer to the following document: How Red Hat Local Vulnerability Checks Use Repositories To Determine Scope. Expected Impact Users should potentially expect to see more Vulnerability findings in their scans when this option is enabled. This is expected because the plugins will no longer consider whether or not the target machine has the specified repository enabled to receive the fixed package(s). Instead, the plugins will only check that any version of the affected package is installed, and proceed straight to version comparison. Tenable's RPM package parsing libraries have extensive functionality to ensure package version checks are as accurate as possible, but due to the potential differences in epoch versions and package naming and versioning discrepancies between the different repositories, potential false positives are possible when this feature is enabled. Affected Plugins Red Hat Local Security Checks Targeted Release Date Thursday, February 5, 2026 Note, not all Red Hat Local Security Check plugins can avail of the this feature yet. Only plugins that have include("rpm2.inc") can use this new feature. There is work ongoing to bring all of these plugins up to date.Improvements to Live Kernel Patching Detection
Summary Tenable has improved Live-Patched Kernel detection to include KernelCare. Change Tenable has improved the logic used to detect live-patched kernels to include the running kernel to support KernelCare for Alma Linux, CentOS, CentOS Stream, Fedora, Oracle Linux, Red Hat Linux, and Ubuntu Linux. Impact Upon release, customers using KernelCare will have the running kernel properly detected and referenced during vulnerability scans. Plugin output will specify which live-patch technology (KernelCare in this case) was detected and whether the appropriate hotfix is installed. For example: >The specified patch KernelCare hotfix for ELSA-2025-7898 has been installed. Note: Existing Oracle Linux Plugins must be updated to include the new plugin output. This will not affect live patch functionality -- only plugin output. This will occur over time to reduce churn. It is expected that all plugin updates will be complete by February 16, 2026. No plugin updates will be required for the updated support for Alma Linux, CentOS, CentOS Stream, Fedora, Red Hat Linux, or Ubuntu Linux. Target Release Date February 9th, 2026
Ruby Gem Enumeration Detection Updates
Summary Tenable has updated the Ruby gem 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 Ruby gem 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 Ruby gem maintainer. Some gems that are symbolically linked across the filesystem could be detected multiple times. After this update, these issues have been addressed. Vulnerable Ruby gems 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 [Override normal Accuracy] setting to Show potential false alarms setting is enabled for the scan. Gems that are symbolically linked will be followed to the source file; duplicate detections will be eliminated. The gem enumeration plugins will no longer report the list of detected gems in plugin output; rather, they will use only internal storage mechanisms to record the detected gems, so that Ruby vulnerability plugins can continue to use that data for version checks. Impact Most customers will notice a reduction in the volume of Ruby gem vulnerabilities reported. Detection plugins 240646 - Ruby Gem Modules Installed (macOS) 207584 - Ruby Gem Modules Installed (Linux) 207585 - Ruby Gem Modules Installed (Windows) Target Release Date March 2, 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 February 9th. Target Release Date Phase 1 plugin set: January 13, 2026 Phase 2 plugin set: January 20, 2026 Phase 3 plugin set: February 9, 2026
January 2026 Tenable Product Newsletter
Greetings! Check out our January newsletter to learn about the latest product updates, research insights, and educational content — all to help you get more value from your Tenable solutions. Tenable One New Tenable One Connector | ORDR Bridge the gap between IT and OT. Connect Tenable One with ORDR to get a single view of your entire attack surface, showing exactly how a simple IT exposure can reach your critical operational technology. By treating IT and OT as a single, connected environment, you can better protect your uptime and ensure smooth and safe operations. Learn more >> Tenable Cloud Security Tenable named a Customers’ Choice in the 2025 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer for Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPPs) We are excited to share that Tenable is named a Customers’ Choice in the 2025 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer for Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPPs). In this report, Gartner Peer Insights provides a rigorous analysis of 1,664 reviews and ratings of 10 vendors in the CNAPP market. In the 18-month eligibility window, we received an average of 4.8 out of 5 stars for Tenable Cloud Security based on 71 reviews as of October 2025. We’re grateful to you, our customers. This kind of feedback tells us we're delivering on what matters most! Learn from your peers as you choose the best solution for your cloud security program. You can read the report here. Exclusions | Strategic risk management: Streamline exception handling with a new centralized framework. Define business scenarios to ignore non-actionable findings or adjust their severity using flexible conditions like tags and attributes. All legacy exceptions now migrate here for a single, auditable source of truth. Reports | Query-to-report automation: Transform any search in Explorer into a scheduled or on-demand report. Leverage a redesigned, full-screen reporting experience featuring live data previews and local timezone support to ensure stakeholders receive actionable data exactly when they need it. IAM | AWS ABAC and granular visibility: Permission evaluations now support AWS attribute-based access control (ABAC) for highly accurate least-privilege recommendations. Additionally, a new dedicated Access Level section in resource profiles replaces generic summaries with a detailed breakdown of permission categories. Projects | Scalable API automation: Manage high-volume environments with new GraphQL API support for Projects. Programmatically create, modify, or delete projects and role assignments to align security governance with rapid DevOps workflows. Data security | Precision classification: Enhance data discovery by using Regex to exclude known or irrelevant values from classification to ensure your data security findings focus on actual sensitive information while filtering out noise. View full cloud release notes Tenable Identity Exposure This month, we are focusing on removing deployment friction for indicators of attack (IoA). To maintain a high-velocity security posture, we have simplified the process of authorizing installation scripts within your existing EDR/AV environments. Frictionless IoA deployment: We’ve added three new parameters to the IoA installation script to ensure your security stack works in harmony. This enhancement accelerates time-to-protection by pre-authorizing deployment scripts and preventing false-positive blocks from security tools. Proactive authorization: Use OutputCertificate or GetSignatureToWhitelist to retrieve the Tenable certificate or script hash for immediate allowlisting. Controlled execution: The TimerInMinutes parameter allows you to delay installation, ensuring your environment has processed allowlist updates before the script runs. View full identity release notes By focusing on these specific parameters, your team can avoid the manual overhead of troubleshooting blocked installations and move directly to monitoring for identity-based threats. Tenable Vulnerability Management Streamline your Microsoft Patch Tuesday remediation Master the monthly operational challenge of Microsoft Patch Tuesday with the updated one-stop-shop dashboard. You can now balance critical deployments against user disruption with a comprehensive view of your organization's remediation status to quickly detect vulnerable devices and prioritize the most difficult issues. This update leverages three key advancements: Enhanced VPR analysis: Utilize the newest algorithm to focus on your most critical vulnerabilities. The enhanced analysis reduces your workload and offers greater explainability for risk scoring. Granular asset tracking: Leverage new software inventory attributes to distinctly analyze risk across operating systems versus applications and packages. Reboot detection: Instantly identify assets with applied patches that are vulnerable due to a pending reboot, so you can close security gaps completely. Download a new copy of this dashboard to access the new widgets and data visualizations. Nessus SSH Session Re-use feature added for credential scans Nessus now supports an opt-in feature to reuse SSH sessions during a scan when running Nessus version 10.9.0 or greater. Added in response to numerous requests from customers like you, this update will reduce the number of new SSH connections established during remote network scans and the associated increase in network traffic. Access more information in Tenable Research Release Highlights here. Tenable Security Center Action required: Preparing for upcoming VPR feed update Starting mid-January 2026, the Tenable Security Center feed will expand to support new Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR) data. To prevent PHP memory exhaustion and ensure your daily updates continue seamlessly, you must take immediate action. Versions 6.5.1 – 6.7.2: Patch 202601.1 is now available. Applying this patch will automatically modify the PHP configuration to increase the memory limit. Versions prior to 6.5.1: Follow the instructions outlined here to modify the PHP configuration. Note: Consoles with less than 8 GB RAM may require a hardware resource update. In case you missed it: Tenable Security Center 6.7 is now available See your environment more clearly and act faster on what matters most. This release delivers a modern, intuitive UX that improves usability, scalability, and efficiency across your workflows. Explore – Assets (preview): Get a modern view of your assets with advanced filtering and improved navigation that helps you identify risks faster. Triggered agent scanning: Automate Tenable Agent scans based on defined conditions, so you can catch vulnerabilities sooner and respond with confidence. Credential verification scan policy: Quickly validate Windows and Unix credential pairs with a built-in template that confirms authentication success. Performance and reporting enhancements: Experience faster scan ingestion, faster reporting, and improved backend performance that keeps pace with your team. Before you upgrade: Tenable Security Center 6.7 supports upgrades from version 6.3.0 and later. The release updates hardware specifications. Systems below the new recommendations will still upgrade successfully, but performance may vary. Upgrade now and view the release notes for details. Tenable Patch Management Get the magic of simplicity and deep control On Jan. 22, your patching experience transforms into a single, unified powerhouse. You no longer have to choose between speed and granular control. You now have full access to our most robust engine designed for autonomous patching. We’ve streamlined your workflow to help you close security gaps faster: Set up in minutes, not hours, with the new 6-step onboarding wizard. Eliminate guesswork using the intuitive "What, When, & How" strategy builder. Act fast with front-and-center emergency controls like Global Pause. Rest assured, your current strategies remain untouched and will continue to function exactly as designed. Explore the new features. Tenable OT Security Now available: Tenable OT Security 4.5 This release delivers improved scalability for enterprise environments, enhanced power grid visibility, and new integrations across the Tenable One portfolio. Advanced dynamic tagging: Streamline prioritization and reporting with the ability to create rule-based groups and tags with multiple filters, including asset type, risk score, and criticality. Enhanced support for IEC 61850: Improve passive detection of intelligent electronic devices with comprehensive visibility across substation and power generation infrastructures. Unified SOC visibility: You can now directly view policy violations that Tenable OT Security detects, such as unauthorized access or failed logins, within Tenable Security Center dashboards and reports to bridge the gap between OT and the SOC. Expanded compliance mapping: Simplify how you measure and report against critical security frameworks with support for IEC 62443-3-3 and NIST-CSF in the Compliance Dashboard. Role-based access controls (RBAC): Tenable Enterprise Manager now enables admins to assign users to specific ICPs using user groups, so users only view the zones they’re authorized to see while inheriting ICP-level roles. Tenable Training and Product Education Introducing the Tenable Universal Education SKU Maximize your team’s expertise without the pressure of immediate decision-making. Tenable Universal Education SKUs streamline your procurement by consolidating all training needs into a single, flexible entitlement. You can secure your budget today and choose your specific product or certification path later as your security priorities evolve. This flexibility also applies to your existing Enrollment Codes, which you can now use for any applicable course. When you are ready to train, simply visit Tenable University, select your course from the eligible catalog, and apply your code to start learning. Tenable Webinars Tune in for product updates, demos, how-to advice and Q&A. See all upcoming live and on-demand webinars here. On-demand Escape the patching cycle. A guide to autonomous risk-based patching. Securing the future of AI in your enterprise. Policy frameworks that balance opportunity and oversight. Customer office hours These are recurring ask-me-anything sessions for Tenable Security Center, Tenable Vulnerability Management, Tenable Cloud Security, Tenable Identity Exposure and Tenable OT Security. Time-zone-appropriate sessions are available for the Americas, Europe (including the Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific (APJ). Learn more and register here. Tenable Research Research Security Operations blog posts Subscribe to the Research team blog posts here. CVE-2025-64155: Exploit code released for critical Fortinet FortiSIEM command injection vulnerability Microsoft’s January 2026 Patch Tuesday addresses 113 CVEs (CVE-2026-20805) Research release highlights SSH Session Reuse: Opt-in to this feature to reduce the number of SSH connections made during remote network scans within Tenable Vulnerability Management and Nessus Miracle Linux Local Security Checks: Scan for Miracle Linux vulnerabilities using the newly released plugins. SNMPv3 for CyberArk and HashiCorp Vault: Choose to query the CyberArk or Hashicorp vaults using the SNMPv3 credentials. Content coverage highlights More than 4,700 new published vulnerability plugins. More than 60 new audits delivered to customers. Read Tenable documentation.Research Release Highlight - Backported Vulnerability Detection Improvements
Summary Backporting is the practice of using parts of a newer version of software to patch previous versions of the same software, most commonly to resolve security issues that also affect previous versions. For example, if a vulnerability is patched in version 2.0 of a piece of software, but version 1.0 is also affected by the same security hole, the changes are also provided as a patch to version 1.0 to ensure it remains secure. Tenable Research identifies backported software installs based on the server banners that the service returns. Previously, when a backported install was detected during a non-paranoid scan, downstream vulnerability plugins would not report the install as vulnerable. During a paranoid scan, vulnerability plugins would act upon the version returned in the banner and would flag if a vulnerable version was installed. Exact details of this process were outlined in this article. This approach was false positive prone and was difficult to maintain accurately due to inconsistent & untimely information from vendors detailing their backported fixes. Change As discussed in the above article, Tenable Research previously maintained a list of known backported banners. If a delta existed between the release of a backported fix & an update made by Tenable Research, a false positive result may have occurred in scans during this time. Following this change, any banners which indicate the software is packaged by a Linux distribution will be deemed to be backported by default. These types of banners typically follow the format of <product>/<version> (<Operating System>) ( E.g., Apache/1.2.3 (Ubuntu) ). Impact During non-paranoid scans, customers can expect improved coverage for products which contain backport fixes that are detected remotely. As a result of this, a reduction in false positives being reported is also expected. Enabling paranoia in a scan configuration will continue to cause backported installs to be treated as regular installs by vulnerability checks. For more accurate vulnerability checks which don’t rely upon the content in a server banner, customers can leverage credentialed or agent-based local checks. Target Release Date January 22, 2026
CyberArk for Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS and F5
Summary Tenable is pleased to announce that customers can now use CyberArk for privilege access management with both the Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS and F5 credentials. Scope Customers utilizing Tenable Vulnerability Management and Nessus Manager now have the capability to configure vulnerability scans with the PAN-OS credential utilizing CyberArk as an authentication method. Similarly to PAN-OS, the F5 credential has also been updated with CyberArk as an option for providing authentication credentials for compliance checks scans. Supported PAM Integration in this Release: CyberArk Plugins The below integration plugins provide essential information for validating the successful acquisition of authentication credentials from CyberArk by both the F5 and PAN-OS integrations. Integration Plugins Integration Status Debugging Log Report Impact Customers will now see CyberArk as credential PAM options within the F5 and Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS credentials. For any issues related to the use of PAM authentication with F5, please refer to the new log in the Debugging Log Report. Example - If using F5 with CyberArk support, the file will display as “f5_settings.nbin~CyberArk”. For any issues related to the use of PAM authentication with Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS, please refer to the new log in the Debugging Log Report. Example - If using F5 with CyberArk support, the file will display as “palo_alto_settings.nasl~CyberArk” Release Date January 21, 2026 for Tenable VM and Nessus TBD: Tenable Security CenterSNMPv3 for CyberArk and HashiCorp Vault
Summary Tenable is pleased to announce the addition of SNMPv3 credentials for our CyberArk and HashiCorp Vault integrations. Scope Customers utilizing Tenable Vulnerability Management and Nessus Manager now have the capability to configure vulnerability scans with SNMPv3 credentials for our CyberArk and HashiCorp Vault integrations. This option is situated under the "Host" category within the credentials tab of either the CyberArk or HashiCorp Vault Integration. Detailed information about the integration configurations can be found within our integration documentation pages for CyberArk and HashiCorp Vault. Supported PAM Integrations in this Release: CyberArk HashiCorp Vault Plugins The following integration plugins contain information that is essential for validation whether the integration successfully obtained a credential for use in SNMPv3 authentication. Integration Plugins Integration Status Debugging Log Report Impact Customers will now see CyberArk and HashiCorp Vault as credential PAM options within the SNMPv3 authentication credentials. For any issues related to the use of PAM authentication with SNMPv3, please refer to the new log in the Debugging Log Report. Example: If using SNMPv3 with CyberArk support, the file will display as “snmp_settings.nasl~CyberArk”. Release Date January 7th, 2026 for Tenable VM and Nessus TBD: Tenable Security Center
