LastAudit is a free PC security scanner

LastAudit is a free Windows security and vulnerability scanner, IT audit and forensic tool.

The program aims to detect and list configuration issues, weak permissions, browsing history, sensitive metadata, previous wifi connections, network resources, and Active Directory OUs, users, servers, shares and services.

The download is just 2MB, a single executable -- just run it to scan the local PC.

LastAudit’s interface is, well, basic. No flashy toolbars, hi-res icons or anything else, just a few checkboxes for your "scan options" and a "Start" button.

We accepted all the default settings, hit Start, and…the program crashed a few seconds later.

We tried disabling individual scan options -- "Filesystem", "LAN", "Active Directory" -- and it still crashed.

One last try, we cleared every checkbox, just leaving the core "Configuration, passwords, vulnerabilities" scan, and this time it worked. The program examined our system for a while, eventually opening an HTML report.

This started by warning us about potential vulnerabilities, some of which are obvious (whether you're running as an administrator), others harder to spot (whether Office has macros enabled, or PowerShell has execution permissions).

The report seems basic and incomplete in places. "AppLocker isn’t running", it warned us (anyone likely to use AppLocker will know that already), before listing just two Registry startup programs.

Still, there are worthwhile details that you won’t always see elsewhere. A list of processes listening to localhost might help you detect dubious software, for instance. And the program tries to take and display a webcam image, which might be interesting if you think the camera is disabled.

There's also a lot of forensic detail on how the computer has been used recently: browsing history (IE/ Firefox/ Chrome), Wi-Fi connections, IE searches, files opened in Explorer, connected USB keys, and the current text contents of the clipboard.

None of this is presented particularly well, and if you're already familiar with NirSoft’s forensic tools then you won't be surprised or impressed.

But on the other hand, LastAudit does cram in a lot of functionality, and if your system can run the file scans, there's also lists of password files, outdated software, documents with sensitive data, files and folders with weak permissions, and more. Give it a try.

LastAudit is a free application for Windows 7 and later.