Improvement to Printer OS Fingerprinting
Updated: April 3, 2026 Summary Scanned printers will now have an OS artefact surfaced in their scan host metadata if the target has been identified as a printer when the “Scan Network Printers” policy option is disabled. This change will not cause any additional asset licenses to be consumed within Tenable VM or Tenable Security Center. Background Printers are notoriously unstable scan targets. Oftentimes, they can behave erratically when scanned, so some users prefer to avoid scanning them altogether. At present, there is a switch in the scan policies to prevent further scanning of a host when it's identified as a printer. To enable this setting, go to Settings -> Host Discovery -> Fragile devices - Scan Network Printers (Currently, this is a checkbox setting, default value “off”). With that said, how can the scanner know the target is a printer if it cannot be scanned? In reality, the scanner still performs very basic fingerprinting (usually via SNMP) in order to gather enough information to make an educated guess at the device type. When the scan target is thought to be a printer, it essentially gets marked as “Host/dead" in the scan KB. When this happens, the scanner will not perform any further active scanning. Changes With this update, the fingerprint used to identify the printer as such, will now be stored in the scan Knowledge Base (KB) so it can be processed by os_fingerprint2.nasl ("Post-scan OS Identification", plugin ID 83349) and surfaced as metadata in the scan result. The relevant policy setting located at Settings -> Host Discovery -> Fragile devices -> Scan Network Printers. With this update, the printer's OS information will now be surfaced if it is available, regardless of the selected value for this setting. Impact Users can now see the OS information for their printer devices that would have otherwise gone unreported if the scan is not configured to “Scan Network Printers”. As plugin ID 83349 generates no plugin output, only an “operating-system” tag will be added to the scan result (and stored in an exported .nessus file). This information will be visible only the in “Host/Asset Details” section of the Tenable product UI, i.e: Tenable Nessus: Scans -> [Folder] -> [Individual Scan Result] - > Host Details -> OS (sidebar) Tenable Vulnerability Management: Explore -> Assets -> [Asset] -> Details -> Operating System Scans -> Vulnerability Management Scans -> [Individual Scan Result] -> Scan Details -> Asset Details -> Operating System Tenable Security Center: Analysis -> IP Summary -> [IP address] -> System Information -> OS Scans -> Scan Results -> [Individual Scan Result] -> IP Summary -> [IP address] -> System Information -> OS Note, we expect this information to surface mainly in individual scan results. It would only be present in cumulative asset details if a licensed asset already exists for the target in question. This update will not cause additional assets to be created or consume any additional licenses. Affected Plugins 83349 - os_fingerprint2.nasl 11933 - dont_scan_printers.nasl 22481 - dont_scan_settings.nasl Targeted Release Date Wednesday, March 4, 2026
AuditLang VSCode Extension Summary Tenable has created a...
AuditLang VSCode Extension Summary Tenable has created a Visual Studio Code extension to assist with custom audit writing and validation. Features include: Syntax highlighting Check snippets Command shortcuts for Compliance Checks reference documentation, download links, etc. Parse/Syntax checking For up-to-date features and installation information you can search for 'Tenable AuditLang' in VS Code -> Extensions: Marketplace, or visit https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Tenable.vscode-auditlang If you have any use cases you’d like to see added to the extension, please either contact your CSM or add a suggestion through the Tenable Products Suggestion Portal. Please use your Community credentials to access the suggestions portal and choose the product “Plugins, Audits, and Compliance” on submittal. Target Release Date ImmediateImprovement: Handling Component Installs for Vulnerability Assessment
Background On Friday, February 6, 2026, Tenable Research published a plugin update that changed the way component installs are assessed for vulnerabilities. Those changes are outlined in a previous release highlight: Component Installs Require Paranoid Checks, This update essentially reverts this change, while adding new functionality to allow users to choose whether or not they want component installs assessed for vulnerabilities. Component installs are no longer influenced by scan paranoia settings. What are “Component Installs”? Software components, such as applications or language modules/libraries, are installed and managed by a primary "parent" package or application. The crucial point is that these components often cannot be updated individually. Instead, their vulnerability assessment and upgrade are entirely dependent on an update of the parent package. For instance, the SQLite database component is installed as part of the Trend Micro Deep Security Agent and is updated only when the Agent itself is updated. Nessus uses several factors to determine if a detected product is a component, or a standalone installation, including: Was the product installed by a package manager? These products are not considered components, as they are managed by the package manager and not a “parent” application Is the component a “language library”, i.e. a library or module used by the interpreter of a programming language like Python or Node.js? These enumerated libraries are marked as components by default. Does the product reside in a directory that is recognized for installations that are not component-based? Changes By default, component installs are once again assessed for vulnerabilities, as was the case prior to the release of the aforementioned update. If users wish to turn this setting off, so that component installs will not be assessed by generic vulnerability detection plugins, they can do so via the newly created scan preference. The end result of this change should be that fewer “false positives”, i.e. reported vulnerabilities for components that are “owned” by another application, are shown in scan results. Components with vulnerabilities that cannot be addressed independently of the “parent” application will not show in scan results. However, some customers have expressed a desire to see these vulnerabilities in their scan results anyway, to ensure full awareness of the risk profile of every application in their environment. This is still possible through the updated scan configuration settings. To modify this setting in your scan policy, go to Settings > Assessment > Accuracy > Override Normal Accuracy > Assess component installs for potential vulnerabilities. This setting is ON (checkbox is ticked) by default, so users must enable the Override Normal Accuracy checkbox (which is OFF / unchecked by default) if they wish to disable the setting and ensure that component installs are not assessed by generic vulnerability detection plugins in this scan. Please note that this update makes no other changes to the existing paranoia logic, outside of what is described above. For now, “Managed”, “Managed by OS” and “Backported” installs are still controlled by the Show/Avoid potential false alarms radio button. How can I tell if the detected install is a component or not? In addition to the above, we have also updated the relevant detection plugins so they will show if the component flag is set or not. At present, this includes detection plugins for OpenSSL, Curl, LibCurl, Apache HTTPD, Apache Tomcat, SQLite, Python Packages, Node.js modules and, soon to follow, Ruby and Nuget libraries. Using plugin ID 174788, SQLite Detection (Windows), here is a before and after example of the expected plugin output. Before: After: Expected Impact With the new default setting in place, users should anticipate an increase in vulnerability findings for the products in scope, returning to a level similar to what was observed before the first update. If users do not wish to surface these additional potential vulnerabilities, they should disable the "Assess component installs for potential vulnerabilities” setting. If the new scan preference is disabled, the volume of findings will remain consistent with current levels, when scanning with normal accuracy (paranoia) settings. Affected Plugins 12288, global_settings.nasl (updated to support the new scan policy preference) Any plugin that operates downstream of those in the list below: SQLite: 174788 - sqlite_nix_installed.nasl 171077 - sqlite_win_installed.nasl OpenSSL: 168007 - openssl_nix_installed.nasl 168149 - openssl_win_installed.nasl Curl: 182774 - curl_nix_installed.nasl 171860 - curl_win_installed.nasl LibCurl: 182848 - libcurl_nix_installed.nasl Apache HTTPD: 141394 - apache_http_server_nix_installed.nasl 141262 - apache_httpd_win_installed.nasl Apache Tomcat: 130175 - apache_tomcat_nix_installed.nasl 130590 - tomcat_win_installed.nasl Python Packages: 164122 - python_packages_installed_nix.nasl 139241 - python_win_installed.nasl Node.js Modules: 178772 - nodejs_modules_linux_installed.nasl 179440 - nodejs_modules_mac_installed.nasl 200172 - nodejs_modules_win_installed.nasl Targeted Release Date Tenable Nessus and Vulnerability Management: Monday, March 9, 2026 (ETA 22:30 Eastern Standard Time) Tenable Security Center: Monday, March 16, 2026Component Installs Require Paranoid Checks (DEPRECATED)
Update - March 4, 2026 After considering customer feedback, we. have decided to re-evaluate these changes and come up with a better way of handling Component installs. For the latest information, please refer to the new release highlight: Improvement: Handling Component Installs for Vulnerability Assessment 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
New Dell OS10 Compliance Plugin and Audit files
Summary Customers can now measure compliance against Dell OS10 devices with new plugin ID Dell OS10 Compliance Checks (275781) on Tenable Vulnerability Management and Nessus. This plugin is published as a part of the Policy Compliance template and will use the existing SSH credential type. The plugin will retrieve all target data using "show" commands and will evaluate actual values against a given audit policy. Three audits implementing the DISA STIG will be released along with the plugin: DISA Dell OS10 Switch Layer 2 Switch STIG v1r1 20 checks DISA Dell OS10 Switch NDM STIG v1r1 39 checks DISA Dell OS10 Switch Router STIG v1r1 42 checks These audits contain a total of 101 checks. Some examples include: OS10-NDM-000010 The Dell OS10 Switch must limit the number of concurrent sessions to an organization-defined number for each administrator account and/or administrator account type. OS10-NDM-000410 The Dell OS10 Switch must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one uppercase character be used. OS10-L2S-000240 The Dell OS10 Switch must not use the default VLAN for management traffic. OS10-RTR-001040 The Dell OS10 Router must be configured to suppress Router Advertisements on all external IPv6-enabled interfaces. Additional Notes For those that are interested in creating custom audit content for their environment, please see the plugin documentation for all supported keywords and uses at https://docs.tenable.com/nessus/compliance-checks-reference/Content/dell-os10.htm. Target Release Date Nessus/Tenable.VM - Immediate Tenable.sc - To be determined
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. Some issues were identified in the Ruby gem enumeration plugins that could have prevented some gems from being detected when the scan config was set to perform thorough checks. Those issues were corrected in this update. Impact Most customers will notice a reduction in the volume of Ruby gem vulnerabilities reported due to removal of duplicate findings. Some may notice a change in detected vulnerabilities due to the updates to thorough mode scanning. Detection plugins 240646 - Ruby Gem Modules Installed (macOS) 207584 - Ruby Gem Modules Installed (Linux) 207585 - Ruby Gem Modules Installed (Windows) Target Release Date March 23, 2026Compliance 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.New CIS Debian Audit Files Summary Customers can now...
New CIS Debian Audit Files Summary Customers can now measure compliance against the latest release of the Debian Linux 11 Benchmark from CIS with the new CIS Debian Linux 11 v1.0.0 audits. These audits have been certified through CIS and can be viewed along with Tenable's other certified products at https://www.cisecurity.org/partner/tenable. Tenable Audit Files CIS Debian Linux 11 v1.0.0 - Level 1 Server CIS Debian Linux 11 v1.0.0 - Level 2 Server CIS Debian Linux 11 v1.0.0 - Level 1 Workstation CIS Debian Linux 11 v1.0.0 - Level 2 Workstation The audits can be downloaded from the Tenable Audits Portal Target Release Date ImmediateNode.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, 2026
