A closer look at GFI LANguard 9

GFI LANguard is a network security scanner. It performs vulnerability assessments, identifies all possible security threats and provides the tools to remediate vulnerabilities and install missing patches.

The installation is pretty straightforward. To access all of LANguard's features, you have to install it on the administrator account.

Welcome screen:

In the Network Audit tab you can perform different types of scan. A Quick Scan discovers high security vulnerabilities and critical missing patches and service packs, a Full Scan scans one or more computers for all security vulnerabilities and builds system inventory, while the Custom Scan and Scheduled Scan are both self-explanatory.



A scan lets you choose the target computer(s) or the entire domain/workgroup, and makes you specify credentials to use in order to logon on to remote targets. The results of a quick scan and actions that can be made:




By choosing to analyze the scan results, you can get insight into specific vulnerabilities affecting your computer:



As an example, below you can find a list of missing service packs and where they can be found:



Now that we found what's missing in order to make our computer safe, we can proceed to Remediate and the different options available (notice the new Remote Desktop Connections option):



To deploy the service packs, you have to choose the target computer(s), which service packs to deploy, and when you are going to do it (immediately or schedule it for some future time):



You can download the service packs manually or let LANguard do it for you. Once they're on your local machine, you are ready to patch your computer - just press the Start button. Below are the results and keep in mind there is no progress bar during the process, so you'll have to wait until it says "Completed" - don't mistake the seeming inactivity for a freeze up:

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