New Training: Enumerating Services and Vulnerabilities

In this 7-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Bob Salmans shows you how to identify exploitable vulnerabilities by using enumeration tools against pentest targets. Learn about Nikto, Enum4Linux, Masscan, and Nessus. Watch this new CompTIA training.

Learn CompTIA with one of these courses:

• CompTIA PenTest+ (PT0-001)

• Penetration Testing Tools

This training includes:

• 7 videos

• 1.1 hours of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Intro to Enumerating Services and Vulnerabilities

• Enumerating with Port Scanners

• Enumerating Web Servers

• Enumerating SMB and Shares

• Enumerating Vulnerabilities with Nessus

• Automating Enumeration

• Pentest Enumeration Review

How Can You Use Port Scanners to Find Devices on a Network?

Before a security analyst can attempt to break into a network, they need to find the devices on that network first. One tool pentesters can use to find those devices is a port scanner.

Port scanners are designed to crawl a network by sending out broad requests on that network to specific ports and seeing which devices respond. These requests are sent as both TCP and UDP requests. Likewise, port scanners can send requests specifically designed to target certain protocols such as sniffing for open SMB shares.

Though common services, like a web server, will use standard ports for connectivity, computers have access to thousands of ports that can be used for network communication. Port scanners can be used to rapidly scan all these ports and accelerate how quickly a security analyst can enumerate devices on a network.

There are a lot of different port scanning tools available depending on your needs and the OS you are using. Good pentesters will understand the differences between these tools and which one should be used under different circumstances.