Nessus v4.2.0 released

Nessus 4.2 features a brand new web-based user interface and other performance improvements.

Version 4.2.0

Reporting

-* When a service is identified against a given port, the port name is now set to the service name.

• An updated .nessus file format (.nessus v2) is now available, which allows for easier parsing of report data Descriptions can now be split into different labels such as CVSS base scores, risk factors and more. A “HostProperties†section contains information about each host which can be extracted easily (MAC addresses, operating system, etc.)
• Nessus 4.2 has a new HTML export format. More exports will soon be available through the plugin feed.

Performance improvements

• Nessus 4.2 requires less memory and can complete scans in less time than previous versions.
• The SYN port scanner is now much faster against a firewalled host with all ports closed.

Engine enhancements

• The default HTTP user-agent is now set to IE8
• OpenSSL has been upgraded to 0.9.8l on Windows.
• nasl -VVVV => will now list the dependencies of a given script (even nbin)
• Fixed SSL issues occurring on Mac OS X

ProfessionalFeed enhancements

• New policies, audit files and other enhancements to the Nessus web interface are distributed through the ProfessionalFeed, which allows more frequent product updates without the need for downloading and upgrading Nessus manually.

Support for new platforms

• Fedora 12, SUSE 10 Enterprise and Ubuntu 9.10 are now officially supported.

Plugin enhancements

• All plugins have been converted to a new registration API splitting the different labels (synopsis, description, solution, etc. are split into different calls, which is needed for the new .nessus format).
• Most plugins have been updated to include standardized titles with more details of the issue. Over 99.9% of plugins now have a direct CVSS score included and use a new format for consistency and easier parsing.

• More information: here
• Blog