Solution

Nikto

• Nikto is a Web server scanner that tests web servers for dangerous files, outdated server software and other problems. Also known as a web server assessment tool.

• It preforms generic and server type specific checks.

• It is designed to find various default and insecure files, configurations and programs on any type of web server.

• Nikto is used for assessing the security of a web application’s deployment.

• It focuses on identifying vulns in commercial and open source web application frameworks.

• It won’t be as helpful for assessing the security of a custom web application.

• For example, it may tell you that a site uses an outdated (and insecure) version of WordPress, but it won’t be able to tell you if the blogging application you wrote from scratch is secure or not.

Examine a web server to find potential problems and security vulnerabilities, including:

• Server and software misconfigurations

• Default files and programs

• Insecure files and programs

Features of Nikto

• SSL Support(Unix with OpenSSL or maybe Windows with ActiveState's Perl/NetSSL)

• Full HTTP proxy support

• Checks for outdated server components

• Save reports in plain text, XML, HTML, NBE or CSV

• Template engine to easily customize reports

• Scan multiple ports on a server, or multiple servers via input file (including nmap output)

• Easily updated via command line

• Identifies installed software via headers, favicons and files

• Host authentication with Basic and NTLM

• Subdomain guessing

• Scan tuning to include or exclude entire classes of vulnerability checks

• Guess credentials for authorization (including many default id/pw combos)

Implemenatation of Nikto

• Nikto is written in Perl, so it will run on any platform that Perl runs on. Like Windows and any of the Unix-based operating systems.

• You shouldn’t need to install any Perl libraries that aren’t already present in a default installation.

• Scanning:

  • Nikto is uncomplicated, but not unsophisticated.

  • We can use the -host option to start scanning a single target for the presence of default files, pages that might expose sensitive information, or pages with known vulnerabilities.