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Using Nmap On Windows

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89 views7 pages

Using Nmap On Windows

Uploaded by

Thando Malaza
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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SECURITY NEWS | MAY 24, 2018

Using Nmap on Windows


Running Nmap on Windows is not as difficult or problematic as it was in the past. Nmap is
supported on Windows 7 and higher with performance close to if not quite as good as Linux
based operating systems. The majority of users still do use *nix based systems however a good
number of people use it on Windows.

By installing Nmap on your Windows based systems you have access to the world's best port
scanner for security testing and troubleshooting of network connectivity. In addition you have
ncat available a full-featured version of netcat a virtual swiss army knife for networks. I am a
big fan of ncat and encourage any system administrator or techie to explore the options.

Installing Nmap for Windows


To install the Windows version of Nmap download the executable installer and click through the
wizard. It is your standard Next | Next | Next | finish... all done. By default, the Nmap installation
directory will be added to the system path. With Nmap in your system path, you can run nmap or
ncat from any command window.
It will run on all the more modern versions of Windows including Windows 7, 2008 and Windows
10. If you are running something older such as 2K or earlier you may run into problems, but if you
are still on those platforms you already have problems... 
If you install from the zip file, there are a few additional configuration items to be aware of and
apply. These are all documented on the nmap installation page for Windows.

Nmap on the Windows Command Line


During a default installation of the Nmap Windows package, the installation path will be added to
the system path. Simply fire up a command prompt and launch nmap. If you installed from the
standalone zip file, you need to add the installation folder to the system path manually through
system properties.
As you can see the familiar Nmap command options appear after running the command. Access
to the Nmap NSE scripts is available as are all the standard options.

Zenmap on Windows
Zenmap is an excellent GUI front-end to the Nmap core scanning engine. It has some pretty nifty
features that are not available with the command line version, in particular the network topology
map. This rivals commercial mapping tools that perform a similar function and is a nice feature.

It is also intuitive to browse through results from different hosts using Zenmap, there are options
to save the results in standard Nmap format (.nmap) or as XML (.xml) for further processing.
There does not appear to be the option to save in the standard Grep format (-oG).

Zenmap is available on Windows and Linux distributions, it can be a great introduction for those
less familiar with the command line.
Testing SMB Security with Nmap NSE Scripts
Bundled with Nmap are addon scripts that perform all manner of functionality. Of note to those in
a Windows environment are the 34 smb- scripts that are available. These allow enumeration of
entities on Windows systems remotely using the Microsoft SMB protocol (port 445). Examples
include smb-os-discovery, smb-enum-users and smb-brute.

There are also vulnerability detection scripts, for testing even the most recent high profile
Windows vulnerabilities. Head over to the Nmap NSE scripts page for all the documentation and a
list of the scripts.

Test Microsoft Windows systems for the very popular remote


code execution vulnerability known as MS08-067. For years this
smb-vuln-ms08-067
was the go to exploit when using Metasploit. Note this check is
dangerous and it may crash systems.

Detect whether target machines are vulnerable to ms10-054 the


smb-vuln-ms10-054
SMB remote memory corruption vulnerability.

Attempts to discover whether systems are vulnerable to ms10-


smb-vuln-ms10-061
061 Printer Spooler vulnerability.
Attempts to detect if a Microsoft SMBv1 server is vulnerable to a
smb-vuln-ms17-010 remote code execution vulnerability ms17-010. The vulnerability
is actively exploited by WannaCry and Petya ransomware and
other malware.

Wrapping Up
Having access to both Nmap and ncat when on a Windows system is very convenient and lots of
fun. There is an amazing number of tricks that can be done with ncat, whether you are
troubleshooting, security testing or just need some network-fu during a penetration test.

There are now 600 Nmap NSE scripts. The capabilities these provide is another bonus for having
Nmap installed on your Windows workstation. Using the bundled scripts there are large number
of short cuts and tests that can be conducted that might otherwise be difficult without additional
software installed.

Thanks for reading, we also have a tutorial and cheat sheet for those wanting to discover more
about this excellent tool.

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