Top 4 Port Scanners

After the tremendously successful 2000 and 2003 security tools surveys, Insecure.Org is delighted to release this 2006 survey. I (Fyodor) asked users from the nmap-hackers mailing list to share their favorite tools, and 3,243 people responded. This allowed me to expand the list to 100 tools, and even subdivide them into categories. This is the category page for port scanners -- the full network security list is available here. Anyone in the security field would be well advised to go over the list and investigate tools they are unfamiliar with. I discovered several powerful new tools this way. I also point newbies to this site whenever they write me saying “I don't know where to start”.

Respondents were allowed to list open source or commercial tools on any platform. Commercial tools are noted as such in the list below. No votes for the Nmap Security Scanner were counted because the survey was taken on a Nmap mailing list. This audience also biases the list slightly toward “attack” hacking tools rather than defensive ones.

Each tool is described by one ore more attributes:

	Did not appear on the 2003 list
	Generally costs money. A free limited/demo/trial version may be available.
	Works natively on Linux
	Works natively on OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, and/or other UNIX variants
	Works natively on Apple Mac OS X
	Works natively on Microsoft Windows
	Features a command-line interface
	Offers a GUI (point and click) interface
	Source code available for inspection.

Please send updates and suggestions (or better tool logos) to Fyodor. If your tool is featured or you think your site visitors might enjoy this list, you are welcome to use our link banners. Here is the list, starting with the most popular:

#1	Superscan : A Windows-only port scanner, pinger, and resolver SuperScan is a free Windows-only closed-source TCP/UDP port scanner by Foundstone. It includes a variety of additional networking tools such as ping, traceroute, http head, and whois.

#2	Angry IP Scanner : A fast windows IP scanner and port scanner Angry IP Scanner can perform basic host discovery and port scans on Windows. Its binary file size is very small compared to other scanners and other pieces of information about the target hosts can be extended with a few plugins.

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#3

Unicornscan : Not your mother's port scanner Unicornscan is an attempt at a User-land Distributed TCP/IP stack for information gathering and correlation. It is intended to provide a researcher a superior interface for introducing a stimulus into and measuring a response from a TCP/IP enabled device or network. Some of its features include asynchronous stateless TCP scanning with all variations of TCP flags, asynchronous stateless TCP banner grabbing, and active/passive remote OS, application, and component identification by analyzing responses. Like Scanrand, it isn't for the faint of heart.

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#4

Scanrand : An unusually fast stateless network service and topology discovery system Scanrand is a stateless host-discovery and port-scanner similar in design to Unicornscan. It trades off reliability for amazingly fast speeds and uses cryptographic techniques to prevent attackers from manipulating scan results. This utility is a part of a software package called Paketto Keiretsu which was written by Dan Kaminsky.

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