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You're reading from  Mastering Linux Security and Hardening - Third Edition

Product typeBook
Published inFeb 2023
Reading LevelIntermediate
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781837630516
Edition3rd Edition
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Donald A. Tevault
Donald A. Tevault
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Donald A. Tevault

Donald A. Tevault - but you can call him Donnie - got involved with Linux way back in 2006, and has been working with it ever since. He holds the Linux Professional Institute Level 3-Security certification, and the GIAC Incident Handler certification. Donnie is a professional Linux trainer, and thanks to the magic of the internet, teaches Linux classes literally the world over from the comfort of his living room. He's also a Linux security researcher for an IoT security company.
Read more about Donald A. Tevault

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Web server scanning with Nikto

The Greenbone Security Assistant, which we just looked at, is a general-purpose vulnerability scanner. It can find vulnerabilities for most any kind of operating system or for most any server daemon. However, as we’ve just seen, a GSA scan can take a while to run, and it might be more than what you need.

Nikto is a special-purpose tool with only one purpose. That is, it’s meant to scan web servers, and only web servers. It’s easy to install, easy to use, and capable of doing a comprehensive scan of a web server fairly quickly.

Nikto in Kali Linux

If you have Kali Linux, you’ll find that Nikto is already installed under the Vulnerability Analysis menu:

Figure 14.20: Nikto on the Kali Linux menu

However, your best bet is to ignore it, and instead use the more up-to-date version that you’ll download directly from Github. That’s because the Nikto signature database that’s installed...

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Mastering Linux Security and Hardening - Third Edition
Published in: Feb 2023Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781837630516

Author (1)

author image
Donald A. Tevault

Donald A. Tevault - but you can call him Donnie - got involved with Linux way back in 2006, and has been working with it ever since. He holds the Linux Professional Institute Level 3-Security certification, and the GIAC Incident Handler certification. Donnie is a professional Linux trainer, and thanks to the magic of the internet, teaches Linux classes literally the world over from the comfort of his living room. He's also a Linux security researcher for an IoT security company.
Read more about Donald A. Tevault