Re: Questions: nmap, nessus unreliability, setting up a packet capture box, using Impacket

["Don Parker" <dparker () rigelksecurity com>]

Hi Paul, well yes I have found nmap to be buggy at times myself. I have not really used 
nessus all that much so I can't comment on it. What I would suggest you use is either 
hping or nemesis for your packet crafting needs. They both offer a fine level of 
granularity when building a specific packet. Though to make the most of those tools you 
need to have some tcp/ip knowledge. The more indepth the better. As to your question #2 
can you be a bit more verbose as to exactly what it is your trying to do ie: is this a 
flat network, segmented, do you want to get absolutely everything or only certain types 
of packets.......

Cheers,

Don

-------------------------------------------
Don Parker, GCIA
Intrusion Detection Specialist
Rigel Kent Security & Advisory Services Inc
www.rigelksecurity.com
ph :613.249.8340
fax:613.249.8319
--------------------------------------------

On Apr 22, Paul Johnston <paul () westpoint ltd uk> wrote:

Hi,

1) How reliable have people here found nmap and nessus to be? I have 
encountered (rare) cases of nmap not finding ports, and also of nessus 
not identifying ports during the find_service stage. We hear a lot about 
false positives, but it's much harder to notice false negatives. 
Anything that can be done about this?

2) I'm looking at setting up a box to capture all traffic on our 
scanning network. Does anyone have thoughts on doing this, based on 
their operational experiences?

3) Using Core Impact's Impacket library, how can you get it to calculate 
UDP or TCP checksums correctly? No matter what I do they won't come out 
right. It works fine for ICMP. While I'm on the subject, what do people 
use for raw packet libraries? I really like scapy for interactive use, 
but it seems a bit heavyweight for use in scripts.

Regards,

Paul

-- 
Paul Johnston
Internet Security Specialist
Westpoint Limited
Albion Wharf, 19 Albion Street,
Manchester, M1 5LN
England
Tel: +44 (0)161 237 1028
Fax: +44 (0)161 237 1031
email: paul () westpoint ltd uk
web: www.westpoint.ltd.uk



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ethical Hacking at the InfoSec Institute. Mention this ad and get $545 off
any course! All of our class sizes are guaranteed to be 10 students or less
to facilitate one-on-one interaction with one of our expert instructors.
Attend a course taught by an expert instructor with years of in-the-field
pen testing experience in our state of the art hacking lab. Master the skills
of an Ethical Hacker to better assess the security of your organization.
Visit us at:
<a 
href='http://www.infosecinstitute.com/courses/ethical_hacking_training.html&apos;>http://www.i
nfosecinstitute.com/courses/ethical_hacking_training.html</a>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ethical Hacking at the InfoSec Institute. Mention this ad and get $545 off
any course! All of our class sizes are guaranteed to be 10 students or less
to facilitate one-on-one interaction with one of our expert instructors.
Attend a course taught by an expert instructor with years of in-the-field
pen testing experience in our state of the art hacking lab. Master the skills
of an Ethical Hacker to better assess the security of your organization.
Visit us at:
http://www.infosecinstitute.com/courses/ethical_hacking_training.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------