Ping Sweeps and Port Scans Essay Example for Free

Ping Sweeps and Port S offers EssayThis written re embrasure wine is to provide insight on nefarious calculator activities called criticize sweeps and port scans as a communicate from management. I will identify them, explain what they atomic number 18 use for, how they are use and how to stop them from assail a net income. Finally I will discuss how they can be eliminated as security risk. The selective information in this report is designed to increase the understanding and knowledge of these two activities so that this companys IT department will be in a better position to recognize them and block say-so attacks from their use. According to S. Branch (2012), in his article What is a Ping Sweep he says A rap sweep, also called an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) sweep, is a diagnostic technique used in computing to see what range of (IP) addresses are in use by live host, which are normally computers. Ping sweeps are not unusual, they are often used by admin istrators in diagnosing network issues however, hackers also use hit sweeps to find alive(p) computers so they will know where to concentrate their attacks. This can become a serious security breach for an unprepared network.Hackers send not one ping but many packets at the same time. This tends to slow down a network. When the hackers ping sweep finds an active computer it can send request for confidential information. There is no reason to be frighten by ping sweeps because the solution for stopping them is very simple. The system administrator only need to handicap ICMP packets and if the system administrator wants to do a ping sweep, just enable the ICMP packets temporarily. According to S. Branch (2012), ping sweeps are older and slower technology, and are not in use as much as in the past. A port scan attack is a popular reconnaissance technique that attackers use to discover services they can break into according to Yahoo Answers (2007), Author unknown. Yahoo Answers stat es that each machines connected to a network run many services that use TCP or UDP ports and thither are more than 6000 defined ports available. Normally port scan does not make direct harm just by port scanning. Potentially a port scan helps the attacker find which ports are available to launch various attacks.A port scan sends a messageto each port one at a time. The response received back indicates whether the port is being used and if so, the port will be probed for weakness. TCP ports are the most attacked ports because they are connected oriented and give tidy feedback to the attacker. The most frequent port scan attacks to look for are Stealth cream off, which is design to be undiscovered by auditing tools, SOCKS, which allows multiple machines to share a common internet connection, easy access when not assemble correctly. Bounce Scans, are systems that they can bounce their attacks through. These systems are FTP server, Email server, HTTP Proxy, Finger and others. Thes e all wipe out vulnerabilities to do bounce scans. They also use UDP ports to find open ports, but it is not often used because it is easily blocked.Port Scan attacks can be reduced or completely solved by deploying Firewalls at critical locations of a network to filter unwanted traffic. There is also Port Scan Attack Detectors (PSAD) on the market for free use. In the fast developing world of computer technologies thither will always be hackers and other types looking for ways to still. In the earlier days of computer technology they were not much of a problem if any. Today programmers and system builders program and build their goods with hackers and others in mind. Many security features are built in and other features are discussed and put in come on at the beginning of the project. Nothing is foolproof, but if there is a way for them to get in, there is a way to keep them out.ReferencesAuthor unknown. (2007). What is a Port Scan Attack? Yahoo Answers http//answers.yahoo.com/ question/ power?qid=20061105020422AAtre1p Branch S. (2012). What is a Ping Sweep? 2003-2013 Conjecture Corporation http//www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-ping-sweep.htm