What Is Network Security Scanner And An Example

What is Network Security Scanner mean?

That's a software tool that scans an entire network and its nodes for security vulnerability and loopholes. It's an automated solution that scans , assesses and evaluation security posture and strength of the underlying network.

And that's also known as a Network Vulnerability Scanner.

Network vulnerabilities scanner is used by network security or network administrators to evaluate a network's security. Typically, a network vulnerabilities scanner scans all known and possible vulnerabilities and threats. It scans all devices including:

Routers, Firewalls , Servers , Client computers


Network security scanners check for vulnerabilities such as:

Password strength , Scripts , Open ports , Operating system controls


Mostly scanners after analysis provide a reporting feature that reports the result like:


Associated vulnerabilities , IT assets , Prioritized threats ,  Percentage of risk vulnerability

If you want to get your Network Vulnerability Scanner , you can buy it in the developer who provided it. But that tools cost a fortune and you can choose free options as well. Not much different from the paid one. Some only look at specific vulnerabilities, but there are also those that offer broad IT security scanning. 

1. Nessus

Nessus is the most common network scanning application used by many administrators in the world. This application was developed by Tenable Network Security. This scanning application offers various functionalities such as network audit configuration, malware detection, and web application scanning.
Nessus is divided into 3 versions, namely.

• Nessus Home - For personal.
• Nessus Professional - For commercial use.
• Nessus Manager / Nessus Cloud - Vulnerability management for expert security teams.

Nessus applications can be installed on various OSes such as debian, fedora, freeBSD, MacOS, Redhat, uBuntu, CentOS, and Windows.

Nessus advantages:

• Advanced vulnerability scanning and configuration audit.
• Able to detect suspicious processes / programs and also worms.
• Able to do multiple network scanning (IP, IPv6, Hybrid).
• Automatic scanning scheduler.
• Custom report & Notification.

Nessus deficiency:

• It is difficult to find certain issues because usually the scanning results are general cases. Usually you need a professional version for better features.

2. Nmap

Nmap is one of the best freeware network utility scanning tools at the moment. Nmap is able to trace raw IP Packet to check host availability, host services (the name of the application & version), detailed information related to the OS that is running, and many other useful features.

Nmap has GUI and CLI versions, from some of these circuits Nmap has the following utilities.

• Zenmap - Advanced GUI & Result Viewer.
• Ncat - Flexible data transfer, redirection & debugging tools.
• Ndiff - Ability to compare scanning results.
• Nping - Packet Generation & response analysis tool.

Nmap is very flexible and can be used on almost any OS including linux, windows, freeBSD, openBSD, solaris, macOS, etc.

Nmap advantages:

• Able to be used as network inventory tools and mapping of IPs, ports, and services.
• Able to detect vulnerabilities in the network.
• Port scanning.
• It's relatively easy to use.

Nmap deficiencies:

• Difficult to find certain issues, especially vulnerability in the application section, nmap is generally used to find vulnerability vulnerabilities in the network section.

3. OpenVas

OpenVAS is an opensource tool that can be used for comprehensive vulnerability scanning and solution management. OpenVAS can even be used to test servers connected to the internet, firewall, and listening services for error configuration and vulnerability.

OpenVAS multiple options when used such as Full Scan for testing network servers and web applications, Web Server Scan for comprehensive web server testing, and WordPress Scan which is a feature that can be used for testing vulnerabilities in wordpress.

OpenVAS advantages:

• Powerful vulnerability scanning and solution management.
• Intelligent custom scans.
• Detailed reporting risk assessment and remediation.

OpenVAS deficiencies:

• It is usually difficult to use to find certain issues. Usually organizations or administrators in large companies prefer to use paid versions like nessus.

4. TCPDump

Tcpdump is a packet analyzer application that functions to monitor and capture network traffic that passes through the host interface running tcpdump. Tcpdump is often used by Network Administrators to troubleshoot network traffic and Security Analyst to analyze the traffic used by malware.

The libpcap library is used by tcpdump to capture traffic on the network, in addition to linux, tcpdump can also run on other operating systems such as Windows, BSD, MacOS, and Android, on the Windows TCCPDump operating system known as windump. tcpdump does not modify the package received, therefore the analysis of the package is entirely in the hands of an analyst.

5. Wireshark

Wireshark is a Network Analyzer tool that is widely used by Network administrators to analyze performance in its network. Wireshark is commonly referred to as a sniffer or scout, said to be a lookout because this Wireshark can easily capture and analyze all information packets in the form of protocols, so we can get important information such as passwords from an account.

  Wireshark can run on many Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux, Mac OSX, BSD, and Solaris, and Microsoft (Windows XP64 / Vista64 / Windows7 / 64).

Wireshark can read data from Ethernet, Token-Ring, FDDI, serial (PPP and SLIP), 802.11 wireless LAN, and ATM connections.

Wireshark advantages

• Easy to install
• Has a GUI display and is simple in using the program
• Has many functions that can facilitate the user.

Wireshark deficiencies:

• It can't detect wireless drivers because in WinPCap library it can't detect it

6. Maltego 

Maltego is a tool for footprinting, used to gather as much information as possible with forensic purposes, testing, or ethical hacking. This application collects information about targets and displays that information in an easy-to-understand format, visualizing the information into a graph format, very suitable for link analysis and data mining.

Footprinting is the process of gathering as much information as possible about a target, this is done to identify various ways to enter into an organization's network system. Footprinting is the first step in attacking a system, the attacker collects sensitive information that is spread in the public, with that information he can use techniques such as social engineering, attacks on the network, and various kinds of attacks that can result in financial losses and losses on the side of business reputation .



that's what is about the Network Security Scanner and some examples of the software.