Network Vulnerability Assessment

Linux patch enumeration

In the previous section, we saw how MBSA can be used to assess the security and patch level on any Microsoft system. We can do a similar assessment on a Linux system as well. In order to perform security and patch enumeration on a Linux system, we can use a tool called Lynis, available at https://cisofy.com/lynis/.

Lynis is a comprehensive tool which can be effectively used for security auditing, compliance testing, vulnerability detection, and system hardening. It runs on almost all UNIX-based systems. While it comes preinstalled in certain Linux distributions, such as Kali Linux, you might have to install it separately on other Linux versions; note the following screenshot:

Once Lynis finishes running all tests, ...