Book Image

Network Scanning Cookbook

By : Sairam Jetty
Book Image

Network Scanning Cookbook

By: Sairam Jetty

Overview of this book

Network scanning is a discipline of network security that identifies active hosts on networks and determining whether there are any vulnerabilities that could be exploited. Nessus and Nmap are among the top tools that enable you to scan your network for vulnerabilities and open ports, which can be used as back doors into a network. Network Scanning Cookbook contains recipes for configuring these tools in your infrastructure that get you started with scanning ports, services, and devices in your network. As you progress through the chapters, you will learn how to carry out various key scanning tasks, such as firewall detection, OS detection, and access management, and will look at problems related to vulnerability scanning and exploitation in the network. The book also contains recipes for assessing remote services and the security risks that they bring to a network infrastructure. By the end of the book, you will be familiar with industry-grade tools for network scanning, and techniques for vulnerability scanning and network protection.
Table of Contents (10 chapters)

Understanding Nmap Script Engine and its customization

The Nmap Script Engine is used to run custom scripts written by users to automate network-level actions. Typically, Nmap scripts end with a .nse extension. These scripts are used to perform the following tasks:

  • Host and port discovery: The whole purpose of Nmap being so widely used is to perform simple tasks to check whether the remote host is live or non-live, along with the current status of the ports.
  • Version detection: Nmap has a database of a variety of application and service signatures which are checked against the responses received from the ports to identify the service running on the port and sometimes the specific version as well.
  • Affected vulnerabilities: Nmap Script Engine allows users to determine whether a particular port/service is vulnerable to a specific disclosed vulnerability. It depends on the script...