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

Attacks against PKI


If you ask any security expert if PKI is 100% safe, the answer would be a big NO - there are a few concerns that are raised by security experts from time to time. I will begin by looking at the management of CA certificates and private keys. The internet is full of billions of websites and services, and so there are multiple certificate authorities. Rolling out new standards takes many years since this affects the whole security ecosystem.

As a system, PKI is nothing but mathematics. Once someone cracks the formula, a new formula will be introduced to the industry, which looks stronger and more secure. But for how long would this be the case?  Another major issue comes with securing private keys. The normal scenario is that you, as a client, generate your private key pair on your own machine, then send the CSR to the CA as part of a certificate request. In some cases, it is a good idea to let the CA generate the key pair and send it to you. In case of private key loss...