Practical Exercise – Running a Credentialed Vulnerability Scanner

The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is an example of a vulnerability scanner, but you must realize that there are others.

In this exercise, we are going to download the MBSA tool and run it against our local computer to look for vulnerabilities:

1. Go to Google and search for the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer tool. You can just enter MBSA and Google will find it.
2. Click on MBSASetup-x64-EN. The MBSA Setup wizard appears. Click Next, as shown in the following screenshot:

   Figure 5.4 – MBSA setup page

3. Click on I accept the license agreement and then click Next:

   Figure 5.5 – Accepting the agreement

4. On the destination folder page, click Next.
5. On the Start Installation page, click Install. Then, the Installation Progress page will appear, as follows:

   Figure 5.6 – Installation progress

6. Then, the setup will conclude. Click OK:

   Figure 5.7 – Installation...