The firm, whose Nessus software includes features such as a log correlation engine and a passive vulnerability scanner, is popular amongst government agencies in the US. It also has links with the University of Maryland's cybersecurity centre (MC2), Infosecurity notes.
The feature enhancements to Nessus and other applications include agentless protection and what the company describes as zero-day responses, with its research teams working on a 24x7 basis to remediate new threats as they appear.
According to Tenable, it now has the world's largest vulnerability and exposure database, which contains 42,000 plugins covering 15,000 unique common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) and over 9,000 Bugtraq IDs.
And, the company says, it is now including botnet detection content within this database.
Ron Gula, the firm's CTO, says that, whilst many organisations have systems that maintain logs on botnets, the reality is that they rarely have the time to properly analyse the logs to protect themselves against malicious content.
"By offering the world's first real-time botnet scanner, our customers around the world can be confident that they are taking a proactive approach to protecting themselves from compromised computers on their network", he said.
The new botnet scanning facility is, says the firm, available immediately to all users of its Enterprise SecurityCenter service, Nessus ProfessionalFeed and Nessus Perimeter Service.