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Version 2.03 .gz or .bz2 | Plugins & DBs
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Description
Nikto is an Open Source (GPL) web server scanner which performs comprehensive tests against web servers for multiple items, including over 3500 potentially dangerous files/CGIs, versions on over 900 servers, and version specific problems on over 250 servers. Scan items and plugins are frequently updated and can be automatically updated (if desired).
Nikto is not designed as an overly stealthy tool. It will test a web server in the shortest timespan possible, and it's fairly obvious in log files. However, there is support for LibWhisker's anti-IDS methods in case you want to give it a try (or test your IDS system).
Not every check is a security problem, though most are. There are some items that are "info only" type checks that look for items that may not have a security flaw, but the webmaster or security engineer may not know are present on the server. These items are usually marked appropriately in the information printed. There are also some checks for unknown items which have been seen scanned for in log files.
Version 2
Nikto version 2 contains many enhancements over the first version. Some of the major new features include:
- Fingerprinting web servers via favicon.ico files
- 404 checking for each file type
- Enhanced false positive reduction via multiple methods: headers, page content, and content hashing
- Scan tuning to include or exclude entire classes of vulnerability checks
- Expanded scan database can have multiple positive or negative triggers, to allow AND/OR/NOT for flexible checks
- Uses LibWhisker 2, which has its own long list of enhancements
- A "single" scan mode that allows you to craft an HTTP request by hand
- Updated and greatly enhanced documentation
- Authorization guessing handles any directory, not just the root directory
- New HTML report
- Basic template engine so that HTML reports can be easily customized
- An experimental knowledge base for scans, which will allow regenerated reports and retests (future)
- ... and countless tweaks/bugfixes/optimizations ...
.01 release
- Anti IDS encoding now works, thanks to Francisco Amato
- Virtual hosts work properly when set via CLI, thanks Jon Hart
- Host header is restored after testing for IIS IP leak
- Plugindir & templatedir are properly set if if EXECDIR is set defined in config.txt, thanks Shiraishi.M and Will Andrews for pointing this out
- The count of items now accurately reflects the number of items, not just number of vulns found, thanks Frank Breedijk
- Unset the auth header after guessing it, thanks Paul Woroshow
- Save a few more items in the KB
- SKIPIDS (in config.txt) can be used to completely ignore tests loaded from db_tests, suggested by Christian Folini
- Enhanced rm_active_content to try to exclude the file/QUERYSTRING from the original request
.03 release
- Nikto can now take greppable nmap input directly on the command line.
- Nikto can take a range of ports (e.g. 80-82).
- Ports that are not open are now reported.
- Nikto can now read hosts from stdin, by specifying "-host -".
- HTML and XML reports don't produce duplicates.
- Allow multiple HTTP methods to work out whether the server is HTTP or not.
- Fix for a nasty bug where defined variables (e.g. cgi-bin directories) are not read properly.
- Updates to allow HTML output to validate properly as XHTML.
.02 release
- XML reports & DTD, thanks to Jabra
- Cleaned up HTML reports, thanks to Jabra
- Unique IDs for all checks, to help automated tracking of vulns
- Apache Expect header XSS plugin
- Updated documentation
- Various bug fixes
Features
- Uses rfp's LibWhisker as a base for all network funtionality
- Main scan database in CSV format for easy updates
- Fingerprint servers via favicon.ico files
- Determines "OK" vs "NOT FOUND" responses for file type, if possible
- Determines CGI directories for each server, if possible
- Switch HTTP versions as needed so that the server understands requests properly
- SSL Support (Unix with OpenSSL or maybe Windows with ActiveState's Perl/NetSSL)
- Output to file in plain text, HTML or CSV
- Plugin support (standard PERL)
- Checks for outdated server software
- Proxy support (with authentication)
- Host authentication (Basic)
- Watches for "bogus" OK responses
- Attempts to perform educated guesses for Authentication realms
- Captures/prints any Cookies received
- Mutate mode to "go fishing" on web servers for odd items
- Builds Mutate checks based on robots.txt entries (if present)
- Scan multiple ports on a target to find web servers (can integrate nmap for speed, if available)
- Multiple IDS evasion techniques
- Users can add a custom scan database
- Supports automatic code/check updates (with web access)
- Multiple host/port scanning (scan list files)
- Username guessing plugin via the cgiwrap program and Apache ~user methods