Vulnerability scanning and drawing out the network

Now that we've gone out, found our live machines, footprinted the OS, or done a banner grab to identify the OS, our next step is to go through and look for vulnerabilities.

Remember, our goal is discovering those targets – hopefully to find out what type of operating system and possibly what applications were running. That's exactly what vulnerability scanning and drawing out the network does for us.

Some IT guys wonder if vulnerability scans are important and my answer – my favorite line from a famous character – is, A man's got to know his limitations.

You must understand what your limitations are, what your vulnerabilities are.

Now that we agree, we'll go ahead and look at some of our greatest weaknesses. We'll do that by understanding what vulnerability scanning is. After that, we'll look at how it works, the different mechanisms we can use, and how various software...