Book Image

Nmap Network Exploration and Security Auditing Cookbook, Third Edition - Third Edition

By : Paulino Calderon
Book Image

Nmap Network Exploration and Security Auditing Cookbook, Third Edition - Third Edition

By: Paulino Calderon

Overview of this book

Nmap is one of the most powerful tools for network discovery and security auditing used by millions of IT professionals, from system administrators to cybersecurity specialists. This third edition of the Nmap: Network Exploration and Security Auditing Cookbook introduces Nmap and its family - Ncat, Ncrack, Ndiff, Zenmap, and the Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) - and guides you through numerous tasks that are relevant to security engineers in today’s technology ecosystems. The book discusses some of the most common and useful tasks for scanning hosts, networks, applications, mainframes, Unix and Windows environments, and ICS/SCADA systems. Advanced Nmap users can benefit from this book by exploring the hidden functionalities within Nmap and its scripts as well as advanced workflows and configurations to fine-tune their scans. Seasoned users will find new applications and third-party tools that can help them manage scans and even start developing their own NSE scripts. Practical examples featured in a cookbook format make this book perfect for quickly remembering Nmap options, scripts and arguments, and more. By the end of this Nmap book, you will be able to successfully scan numerous hosts, exploit vulnerable areas, and gather valuable information.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Appendix A: HTTP, HTTP Pipelining, and Web Crawling Configuration Options
Appendix Β: Brute-Force Password Auditing Options
Appendix F: References and Additional Reading

Chapter 7: Scanning Mail Servers

Mail servers are available in almost any organization because email has taken over as the preferred communication channel. The importance of the role of mail servers depends on the information stored in them. Attackers often compromise an email account and proceed to take over all other accounts found in the mailbox, and recover other credentials using the forgotten password functionality available in almost every web application. Sometimes, compromised accounts are simply eavesdropped on for months without anyone noticing, and they may even be abused by spammers. Therefore, any good system administrator knows that it is essential to have a secure mail server.

In this chapter, I will go through different Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) tasks to administer and monitor mail servers. I will also show the offensive side available to penetration testers. We will cover the most popular mail protocols, such as SMTP, POP3, and IMAP.

We will review tasks such...