GFI LanGuard 9 is a network / PC auditing tool. The tool does a pretty decent job of detecting machines on the network, devices, appliances, and other misc. items. It can also do a fairly deep scan of each local machine for installed software, installed patches, missing patches, open ports, and detecting vulnerabilities that are present. The “Quick Scan” option is fairly quick taking no longer than a minute or two for each machine, and the “Full Scan” no longer than 5-6 minutes per machine.

I ran a full scan on one of my internal machines (behind plenty of firewalls) and it was able to pull up the open ports I had (many for development tools) and noticed I was lacking a few Microsoft updates even (I’ve been pushing that restart notification back for a couple days now).

GFI_Languard

GFI_Languard_analyse

All in all it feels like a fairly robust tool and the best part is it’s free for home or small usage (up to 5 IPs). I would recommend this for those who have any sort of home network and want to audit it, or for those with an extremely small office team.

For more information, check out GFI’s site.

Each Thursday, Security Musings features a security-related technology or tool. Featured items do not imply a recommendation by Gemini Security Solutions. For more information about how Gemini Security Solutions can help you solve your security issues, contact us!