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

Technical requirements

The following tools are officially part of the Nmap project and were created to accomplish common tasks for network diagnostics and security scanning:

  • Nping (https://nmap.org/nping/) specializes in custom network packet crafting for diagnostics and troubleshooting.
  • Ncrack (https://nmap.org/ncrack/) focuses on network authentication cracking, supporting the most popular applications and protocols.
  • Ncat (https://nmap.org/ncat/) is an enhanced version of Netcat that supports encryption out of the box and is extensible using Lua scripts.
  • Zenmap (https://nmap.org/zenmap/) is a cross-platform GUI for Nmap focused on usability.
  • NSE (https://nmap.org/book/nse.html) takes information obtained from scanned targets and provides an interface for users to script additional tasks using Lua.