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

String handling

Lua's string library supports a lot of handy string operations. Strings will obviously be used frequently when writing NSE scripts because they represent byte sequences. Let's review the most common functions for string handling.

Character classes

Character classes are special operators used in patterns. We need them when matching or subtracting substrings, so keep them in mind when we review patterns and string operations. Character classes are as follows:

Figure 19.1 – Character classes

Magic characters

The following characters have special functions within patterns:

Figure 19.2 – Magic characters

Patterns

Patterns are used to match strings, and they are very powerful. Think about them as simplified regular expressions in Lua. Character classes and captures are used in combination with patterns to allow programmers to perform advanced matching and string substitution and extraction...