The 'thorough tests' setting is a flag used by some NASL scripts to
perform analysis that is an order of magnitude harder than without the
flag.
For example, when enumerating directories, the difference between
searching 3 levels deep as compared to 1 level deep has much more impact
on a target system or the length of a scan.
For a specific example, consider the webmirror.nasl script which has a
line like this:
num_cgi_dirs = 0;
if ( thorough_tests )
max_cgi_dirs = 1024;
else
max_cgi_dirs = 4;
Clearly 1024 is more thorough than 3, but both would report CGI files.
In some cases the thorough_tests setting will disable slower plugins
such as default password guessing. For an example of this look at
account_swift_swift.nasl.
Another good example is the bittornado_installed.nasl script which will
perform an addition check for the issue if it has not found an existing
vulnerability already, but only if the thorough_tests flag has been set
by the scan.
As a general rule of thumb, if you are doing an enterprise scan, I would
disable this feature but if you are scanning a few systems or even one
system to keep it enabled.
Ron Gula
Tenable Network Security
Kevin Mc Grath wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I hope someone can enlighten me about the "thorough tests" option. I
> have no information on this except that some plugins will work
> "harder" when this option is enabled. What else does it do? Why should
> this option be enabled?
>
> I would very much appreciate your thoughts on this.
>
> Kind Regards
> Kevin
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>
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