An Introduction to Port Scanning with Nmap

This video gives an introduction and demonstration of port scanning, using Nmap and Masscan on Kali Linux. I made the video as part of an assignment for my Cyber Security course. I'll write more later about the details of what's done in the video and include text examples of the commands used.

You can try this yourself with a command prompt and at least one port scanning application installed (e.g. Nmap, which is most often used on Linux but can also be installed on Windows, and I think MacOS also.)

In the video I'm using Kali linux on a virtual machine (with VirtualBox) which itself is running on Windows 10. I've made the terminal font really large so it's more visible in the video.

The video was recorded with Zoom, and I'm using a virtual background (and wearing the obligatory hoodie/hacker-uniform), so it looks like I'm in my "creepy hacker's den".

I was half asleep at the time, lol, and began recording about 10:30 pm (after writing and handing in about 10,000 words of essays in the previous several days). The video was due at midnight, so I didn't have time to to several drafts or even write out a script, I was mostly just making it up as I went...

Embedded YouTube Video

This was my assignment question

Port Scanning Video Demonstration

Most communication in TCP/IP networks involves the exchange of information between a program running on one system (known as a process) and the same, or a corresponding process, running on a remote system.

TCP/IP uses numeric value as an identifier to the application and services on these systems. This value is known as the port number.

Use the library resources/ the Internet to locate two port scanner applications. Download and install each selected tool on a Virtual machine (Kali Linux / Windows).

Create a 5-7 minute video demo using the Zoom application (along with presenters’ video) addressing the following tasks:

• Analyse and discuss the importance of port scanners.
• Perform port scanning using both applications.
• Identify and discuss the strengths and weakness of each scanner.
• Which scanner would you recommend? Justify your recommendation.

Extras

Note that with nmap (and the ssh command too), the port number (or range) comes after -p and then a space — but for masscan there is no space between the -p and the number.

Coming Soon

More explanation and examples to be added to this web page soon...

Cover image by Shutterstock

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