Automating Nexpose


m3rcer

This Program helps automate aspects of the Nexpose API to build classes to perform unauthenticated vulnerability scans against target hosts on a network.

View/Download the Visual Studio Project

Note: This program was made for the Nexpose API v1.1/v1.2. The current version of this writing is v3. v1.1/v1.2 utilized xml, whereas v3 utilizes json to interact with the API. I couldn’t find a depreacted running version of Nexpose running these prior version nonetheless the program works as expected.

When you start a vulnerability scan in Nexpose, you scan a site which is a collection os hosts/assets on the network. Sites are further classified into static and dynamic, we will be focussing on the static site which holds a list of hosts you can only change by reconfiguring the site.

Notice in the output that Nexpose is returning at least three scan statuses, which are separate phases of the scan: running , integrating , and finished . Once the scan finishes, our PDF report is written to the user’s Desktop, as expected.

Code:

Class Components:

  1. The NexposeSession Class
  2. The NexposeManager Class
  3. The Main Class

Output: 

C:\Users\example\Documents\ch6\bin\Debug>.\06_automating_nexpose.exe
11:42:24 PM: <ScanStatusResponse success="1" scan-id="4" engine-id="3" status=➊"running" />
–-snip--
11:47:01 PM: <ScanStatusResponse success="1" scan-id="4" engine-id="3" status="running" />
11:47:08 PM: <ScanStatusResponse success="1" scan-id="4" engine-id="3" status=➋"integrating" />
11:47:15 PM: <ScanStatusResponse success="1" scan-id="4" engine-id="3" status=➌"finished" />
C:\Users\example\Documents\ch6\bin\Debug>dir \Users\example\Desktop\*.pdf
Volume in drive C is Acer
Volume Serial Number is 5619-09A2
Directory of C:\Users\example\Desktop
07/30/2017 11:47 PM 103,174 4.pdf ➍
09/09/2015 09:52 PM 17,152,368 Automate the Boring Stuff with Python.pdf
2 File(s) 17,255,542 bytes
0 Dir(s) 362,552,098,816 bytes free
C:\Users\example\Documents\ch6\bin\Debug>