Tag Archive for: it security

Greenbone AG

Greenbone OS 21.04 – All New Features at a Glance

Since 2021-04-30, the latest GOS version – version 21.04 – is available and, as always, it brings a lot of new features and improvements! What exactly? Get an overview of all important changes with GOS 21.04 here!

New Hardware Models for Our Midrange Class Available

A new hardware generation has been introduced for the Midrange Class hardware appliances, which are used for medium-sized companies or for branch offices of large, distributed companies.

The new hardware now uses SSD-type hard disks instead of HDD, which are 10 times faster, quieter and lighter. There is also more hard disk space available. The RAM has also been improved. It is now DDR4 instead of DDR3, which makes it significantly faster with a higher clock rate (3200 MHz). Furthermore, twice to four times as much main memory is available than before. In addition, a new, faster CPU of the latest generation has been installed. The ports of the appliances also change: instead of 6 ports GbE-Base-TX and 2 ports 1 GbE SFP, there are now 8 ports GbE-Base-TX and 2 ports 10 GbE SFP+.

The model names remain unchanged.

Boreas Alive Scanner now as Standard

The Boreas Alive Scanner is a host alive scanner that identifies the active hosts in a target network. It was introduced with GOS 20.08, but was previously optional. With GOS 21.04, the Boreas Alive Scanner became standard.

Compared to the Nmap port scanner, which was previously used by default, the Boreas Alive Scanner is not limited in terms of the maximum number of alive scans performed simultaneously and is therefore faster.

The Boreas Alive Scanner significantly reduces scanning time for large networks with a small percentage of reachable hosts. This also makes it possible to get the first scan results faster, regardless of the percentage of alive hosts in the network.

Clearer Results Thanks to New Report Formats

Two additional report formats are now available for exporting reports, replacing the previous standard report formats: Vulnerability Report PDF and Vulnerability Report HTML. The report formats are clearly structured and easy to understand. Specific information relevant to the target group can be quickly identified and understood.

The report formats provide a basis for user-defined reports, which are planned for future GOS versions.

Example of a Greenbone vulnerability report in HTML format, featuring a risk matrix and detailed scan results of IT infrastructure vulnerabilities.

 

New Network Backend for a more Stable Connection

With GOS 21.04, the network configuration backend in GOS has been improved by introducing the gnm networking mode. This prevents connection losses in certain network configurations as well as connection problems with SSH sessions. In addition, the GSM no longer needs to be restarted after certain network settings have been changed.

New Hypervisors for Our Virtual Appliances

The officially supported hypervisors for the virtual appliances have been changed with GOS 21.04. The GSM EXA/PETA/TERA/DECA and 25V can be used with Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), and Huawei FusionCompute; the GSM CENO can be used with Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi); and the GSM ONE can be used with Oracle VirtualBox, VMware Workstation Pro, and VMware Workstation Player. Additionally, GOS 21.04 supports the ARM instruction set on Huawei FusionCompute.

Improvement of the Web Server, Ciphers and Web Certificates

With GOS 21.04, the nginx web server is used in addition to the Greenbone Security Assistant Daemon (gsad). This web server uses OpenSSL instead of GnuTLS to define the available ciphers and protocols of the server. There is now a new menu in the GOS administration menu for configuring the TLS version. In addition, the menu for configuring the ciphers has been adapted.

Another change can be found in the generation of HTTPS certificates. Here it is now possible to define one or more Subject Alternative Name(s) (SAN). These are used to cover multiple domain names and IP addresses with one certificate.

CVSS v3.0/v3.1 Support for Severity Calculation

CVSS version 3.0 and 3.1 are now supported for calculating the severity of CVEs (Common Vulnerability Enumeration).

VTs and CVEs can contain version 2 and/or version 3.0/3.1 CVSS data. If a VT/CVE contains both CVSS v2 data and CVSS v3.0/v3.1 data, the CVSS v3.0/v3.1 data is always used and displayed.

The page CVSS Calculator now contains both a calculator for CVSS v2 and a calculator for CVSS v3.0/v3.1.

Screenshot comparing CVSSv2 and CVSSv3.1 score calculation in GOS 21.04, showing severity levels, vectors, and risk ratings for a sample vulnerability.

Open Scanner Protocol Makes all Sensor GSMs Lightweighted

Already with GOS 20.08 it was optionally possible for all sensors to be controlled via the Open Scanner Protocol (OSP). This results in the sensors becoming lightweighted and avoids the need for additional credentials on the sensor.

With GOS 21.04, only OSP is now used as the protocol to control a sensor GSM via a master GSM. The Greenbone Management Protocol (GMP) is no longer used.

Simplified and More Intuitive Functions on the Web Interface

With GOS 21.04, some minor changes have also been made to GOS and the web interface to make GSM operation and scanning clearer and more intuitive.

For example, the Auto-FP function and the alternative severity class schemes – BSI Vulnerability Traffic Light and PCI-DSS – have been removed.

Some devices – especially IoT devices – can crash when scanned across multiple IP addresses simultaneously. This can happen, for example, if the device is connected over IPv4 and IPv6. With GOS 21.04, it is possible to avoid scanning over multiple IP addresses at the same time by using the new setting Allow simultaneous scanning via multiple IPs when creating a target.

See for Yourself!

Check out our new features and changes for yourself! New appliances with GOS 21.04 are now available and existing appliances can also be upgraded to the latest version. Also our free trial version can be used with GOS 21.04.

Contact Free Trial Buy Here Back to overview
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Elmar Geese

Greenbone OS 21.04 – Even faster, more reliable and clearer

We are pleased to inform you that the latest version of our operating system Greenbone OS is now available! We have taken many of your wishes into account: the focus of the improvement was the scanning of large networks with many scan results and extensive reports. Among other things, GOS 21.04 offers new hardware, an improvement of host detection and clearer reports.


Delivering the best vulnerability management to our customers – this goal has always been at the core of our products. With the new release of our operating system Greenbone OS, we stay true to this claim and make our products more powerful: especially for large networks with many distributed branch offices, scanning with GOS 21.04 is faster and the scan results are even clearer.

More powerful and faster hardware for the Midrange Class

In large networks, several distributed medium-sized to large appliances are usually used, linked together via a master-sensor setup. For this reason, the Midrange Class hardware appliances have been strengthened by improving their hardware.

Our new hardware now uses SSD-type hard disks instead of HDD, which are 10 times faster, quieter and lighter. There is also more storage space available. The RAM has also been improved: instead of DDR3, it is now DDR4, which is much faster due to a higher clock rate (3200 MHz). Furthermore, twice to four times as much working memory is available than before. In addition, the hardware received new, faster CPU of the latest generation and also the ports of the appliances were updated: instead of 6 ports GbE-Base-TX and 2 ports 1 GbE SFP there are now 8 ports GbE-Base-TX and 2 ports 10 GbE SFP+.

Boreas Alive Scanner for faster availability of results now as standard

Scanning is also getting faster – which is especially helpful in large networks. GOS 20.08 already introduced the Boreas Alive Scanner, a host alive scanner that identifies the active hosts in a target network. With GOS 21.04, the Boreas Alive Scanner becomes standard, eliminating the need for manual activation.

The Boreas Alive Scanner is not limited in terms of the maximum number of simultaneous alive scans it can perform, making it faster than its predecessor Nmap. This significantly reduces the scanning time for large networks. Initial scan results are available faster, regardless of the percentage of reachable hosts in the network.

Clearer reports thanks to new report formats

The evaluation of scans is also clearer – thanks to new report formats. With the Vulnerability Report format as PDF and as HTML, the reports are clearly structured and easy to read. Specific information relevant to the target group can be quickly identified and understood.

Example of a Greenbone Vulnerability Report with risk matrix and detailed scan results in HTML format

See for Yourself

Scanning with GOS 21.04 is even faster, more reliable and clearer. Convince yourself of our new features and changes! New appliances with GOS 21.04 are available now. For existing appliances, the upgrade to the latest version will be available next week. Also our free trial version will be usable with GOS 21.04 then.

Contact Free Trial Buy Here Back to overview
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