Book Image

Practical Network Scanning

By : Ajay Singh Chauhan
Book Image

Practical Network Scanning

By: Ajay Singh Chauhan

Overview of this book

Network scanning is the process of assessing a network to identify an active host network; same methods can be used by an attacker or network administrator for security assessment. This procedure plays a vital role in risk assessment programs or while preparing a security plan for your organization. Practical Network Scanning starts with the concept of network scanning and how organizations can benefit from it. Then, going forward, we delve into the different scanning steps, such as service detection, firewall detection, TCP/IP port detection, and OS detection. We also implement these concepts using a few of the most prominent tools on the market, such as Nessus and Nmap. In the concluding chapters, we prepare a complete vulnerability assessment plan for your organization. By the end of this book, you will have hands-on experience in performing network scanning using different tools and in choosing the best tools for your system.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Password policies


Passwords are an important characteristic of computer security. A poorly constructed, weak password may result in unauthorized access or exploitation of organization IT resources. This password construction guideline applies to all passwords, including (but not limited to) user-level accounts, system-level accounts, web accounts, email accounts, and local router logins. On a Windows system, you can run secpol.msc from the Command Prompt: 

Strong passwords have the following characteristics:

  • They contain at least twelve alphanumeric characters
  • They contain both upper and lowercase letters
  • They contain at least one number (for example, 0-9)
  • They contain at least one special character (for example, !$%^*()_+|~-=\`{}[]:";'?,/)

Following are some of the password policies we must remember:

  • Protect your password: It is very challenging to remember your password without writing it down somewhere, so choose a strong password or passphrase that you will easily remember. If you have a lot...