Detailed Analysis of Port Scanners in Network Security - Report

This report delves into the realm of network security, focusing on the critical role of port scanners. It begins by highlighting the importance of port scanners in identifying open ports and potential vulnerabilities within a network. The report then provides a comparative analysis of several prominent port scanning tools, including Nmap, Unicornscan, Angry IP Scanner, and Netcat. For each scanner, the report meticulously outlines its strengths and weaknesses, offering a balanced perspective on their capabilities and limitations. The analysis covers aspects such as active port scanning, host detection, operating system detection, and application version detection. The report concludes by recommending Nmap as the preferred scanner, emphasizing its open-source nature, versatility, and ability to detect operating systems and versions, along with its integrated NSE scripts for vulnerability discovery and stealth capabilities. The report also references several research papers to support the analysis and findings.

Running head: NETWORK SECURITY
NETWORK SECURITY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
1. Importance of Port scanner....................................................................................................2
3. Strength and weakness of different port scanner...................................................................2
Nmap Port scanner.................................................................................................................2
Unicorn scanner.....................................................................................................................3
Angry IP scanner....................................................................................................................4
Netcat.....................................................................................................................................4
4. Recommended Scanner..........................................................................................................5
Reference....................................................................................................................................6

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1. Importance of Port scanner
A port scanner is an application which is designed to investigate a server or hosts for
opening port. In other words it is carried out to determine a list of open ports [1]. It is used for
security investigation on any local network. The importance of port scanners are:
i) Port scanner is an art of scanning which the target the system database to obtain a
list of open ports that are listening for connections.
ii) It is one of the most frequent information gathering techniques used by hackers.
3. Strength and weakness of different port scanner
The top port scanners are port scanner tools are:
i) Nmap
ii) Unicornscan
iii) Angry IP Scan
iv) Netcat
Nmap Port scanner
Nmap port scanner is a popular port scanner; the proper parameters are executed to
provide speed and accuracy. The scanning is done by sending packets to each port and
observing the reply [2]. The strength and weakness of Nmap port scanner are listed below:
Strengths:
i) Active Port Scanning: Allows in scanning and discovering the open ports from a
specific network.

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ii) Host detection: Allows in identifying the potential hosts which are responding to
the network request.
iii) Operating System detection: It is used to determine the name and version of the
operating system along with the network details of the operational hosts.
iv) Application version detection: It can also able to discover the type and version of
the application running on the system.
Weakness:
i) Scanning through proxies
ii) Network adapter for windows
Unicorn scanner
Unicorn scanner is a new information gathering technology which is designed to
provide accurate and flexible engine [3]. The strength and weakness of Unicorn scanner are
listed below:
Strength:
i) Stateless asynchronous TCP scanning
ii) Asynchronous UDP scanning
iii) Service detection and IP port scanner
iv) Isolated operating system recognition
v) Enable numerous modules for command-line
Weakness

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i) It only logs the output of the main thread and not the sender and receiver.
Angry IP scanner
Angry IP Scanner is a very quick addressing mode port scanner. It can trace IP
addresses in any range [4].The strength and weakness of Angry IP scanner are listed below:
Strengths:
i) No installation is required
ii) Scan for open ports on any isolated network
iii) Web server and NetBIOS information detection
Weakness:
i) Uses Java plugins
Netcat
Netcat has the capability to write and read data across TCP and UDP network
connection [5]. The strength and weakness of Netcat scanner are listed below:
Strengths:
i) Supports TCP and UDP port scan
ii) Inbuilt port scans capabilities
iii) Verbose part scanning
Weakness:
i) Netcat does not make any UDP connection

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4. Recommended Scanner
Nmap is the most recommended scanner because Nmap is an open source application
and can be used by any network developer administrator for security auditing over the local
networks. Nmap stands for Network Mapper. It is an extremely versatile TCP/UDP port
scanning tool which has the capability to detect the operating system and its version on the
system. For discovering vulnerabilities and reconnaissance inbuilt NSE scripts are provided.
It even has the option stealth/firewall action of evading. It has the ability to integrate with the
Zenmap Graphics User Interface. Network Mapper can copy documents by using various
techniques and scripts.

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Reference
[1] P.E., Weerathunga, and A., Cioraca. The importance of testing Smart Grid IEDs against
security vulnerabilities. In 2016 69th Annual Conference for Protective Relay Engineers
(CPRE) (pp. 1-21). IEEE, 2016, April.
[2] Z., Durumeric, E., Wustrow, and J.A., Halderman. ZMap: Fast Internet-wide scanning
and its security applications. In Presented as part of the 22nd {USENIX} Security Symposium
({USENIX} Security 13) (pp. 605-620) , 2013.
[3] V., Ghiëtte, N., Blenn, and C., Doerr. November. Remote identification of port scan
toolchains. In 2016 8th IFIP International Conference on New Technologies, Mobility and
Security (NTMS) (pp. 1-5). IEEE, 2016.
[4] B., Cusack, and Z.,Tian. Evaluating IP surveillance camera vulnerabilities, 2017.
[5] Y. Wang, and J. Shen. CloudProxy: a NAPT proxy for vulnerability scanners based on
cloud computing. Journal of Networks, 8(3), p.607, 2013.