Security teams and IT teams rely on tools for vulnerability scanning, management, remediation, and continuous security processes. Nessus, by being one of the most popular and useful tools, was an automatic choice for the authors to try and automate.
In this chapter, we looked at the main activities of vulnerability scanning, such as being able to install and deploy the tool, initiate a scan, and download a report.
In the next chapter, we will delve deeper into system security and hardening. We will look at various open security initiatives and benchmarking projects such as STIG, OpenSCAP, and Center for Internet Security (CIS). We will learn how to integrate them with our playbooks and automation tools, such as Tower and Jenkins. This chapter on vulnerability scanning, and the next one on the security hardening of networks and applications create a solid base to explore more ideas on security automation and keeping your systems secure and hardened.