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 5: Scanning Web Servers

HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is arguably one of the most popular protocols in use today. Web servers have moved from serving static pages to handling complex web applications with user interaction. This evolution of web technologies opens the door to tainted user input that could change an application's logic to perform unintended malicious actions. Modern web development frameworks allow almost anyone with some knowledge of programming to produce web applications in minutes, but this has also caused an increase in the number of vulnerable applications on the internet. The number of available HTTP scripts for the Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) has grown over the years, and Nmap turned into an invaluable web scanner that helps penetration testers. Not only can it be used to find vulnerable web applications or detect incorrect configuration settings, but Nmap can also crawl web applications looking for all sorts of interesting information.

This...