In modern technology, the term “network” covers a large area. The network is the central nervous system of the communications infrastructure, allowing for the distribution of information and the pooling of available resources.
Network security is the next concept to enter the picture. “Network security” refers to the established rules, policies, and procedures for keeping a network safe from abuse and unauthorized interference.
Scanning your network for vulnerabilities and open ports is vital to network security since it helps you spot malicious activities that could compromise your network. Information that is private and important to you could be compromised.
What is it to scan a network?
Network scanning is a process that can be described in many ways. It finds the current hosts (clients and servers) on a network and what they are doing to attack the network. It is also used by people who want to break into the system to do so.
This process checks a network’s protection and maintains its systems.
In short, the steps of Network Scanning are:
- I’m figuring out what filtering systems are between two live hosts on a network.
- I am running network services for both UDP and TCP.
- Find out what each host’s TCP Sequence Number is.
- Network Scanning also includes Port Scanning, which involves sending data files to a specific port number.
Following Are The Top Network Scanning Tools
#1) Intruder
The Intruder is an intense vulnerability scanner that checks your network systems for security holes, explains the risks, and helps you fix them before a breach occurs.
With thousands of automated security checks, Intruder makes enterprise-grade vulnerability scanning available to businesses of all kinds. Its security checks look for wrong configurations, missing patches, and typical problems with web applications like SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
Built by security experts, Intruder takes care of a lot of the trouble of managing vulnerabilities so you can focus on what matters. It saves you time by putting results in order of importance based on their context. It also scans your systems for new weaknesses, so you don’t have to worry about them.
Intruder also works with popular cloud services like Slack and Jira.
Website: Intruder
#2) Auvik
Auvik is a solution for managing networks that can instantly find IT assets that are spread out. It shows how the devices join each other.
The security and performance of this cloud-based system are automatically updated. It uses AES-256 to secure the network data. Its tools for analyzing traffic will help find the oddities faster.
Key Features:
- Auvik Traffic Insights gives you information about the traffic you can use to conduct innovative research on network traffic.
- It lets you connect network items from Auvik’s inventory and access the network from anywhere.
- Auvik makes it easy to move around the network, and you’ll be able to see the network as a whole.
- It has tools that make it easy to manage sites that are spread out.
- It can automate the visibility of networks and the control of IT assets.
Price: Auvik is free to try. There are two price plans for it: Essentials and Performance. You can get a figure of the cost. The price starts at $150 per month, according to reviews.
Website: Auvik
#3) SolarWinds Network Device Scanner
The Network Performance Monitor from SolarWinds comes with the Network Device Scanner, which can monitor, find, map, and scan network devices. Network Discovery Tool can be run just once, or it can be set to run on a daily schedule to find new devices.
Key Features:
- Network Device Scanner will find and scan all network devices on its own. You’ll be able to figure out how a network works.
- It will measure the network’s devices’ faults, availability, and speed.
- Network Performance Monitor has a screen that can be changed to show this information.
- Network Performance Monitor’s clever, dependency- and topology-aware network alerts will help you find the root cause faster.
- It will analyze apps and services in the cloud and on-premises hop by hop.
Price: For 30 days, you can get a free trial that works perfectly. The starting price for a Network Performance Monitor is $2995.
Website: SolarWinds
#4) ManageEngine OpUtils
Best for: Network and security administrators of small, large, private, or government IT networks.
ManageEngine is a software company. OpUtils is a powerful IP address and switch port manager with solid network scanning features.
This tool is versatile, catering to both small-scale and large-scale networks. It conducts comprehensive scans across networks, employing diverse network protocols like ICMP and SNMP. Its execution provides valuable insights into IT assets, encompassing interconnected devices, servers, as well as switch ports.
The answer is easy to use and works on both Linux and Windows servers because it is a web-based, cross-platform tool. It also has more than 30 built-in network tools that can be used to find and fix network problems right away.
Key Features:
- It can scan various subnets, servers, and routers from a central console.
- It lets you group tools by where they are, handle IT administration, etc. You can scan each one separately or set up a schedule to scan them occasionally.
- It shows the current state of the scanned IPs, servers, and switch ports, their availability, and how much they are being used.
- Offers customized dashboards and top-N widgets that visually show important network data.
- It lets you set up alerts based on thresholds triggered when a new network problem appears.
- It makes different reposts that give detailed information about the scanned network resources.
Website: ManageEngine
#5) ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus
Vulnerability Manager Plus can scan local and external endpoints and roaming devices on a network to find the most vulnerable spots. It works well to find OS flaws, third-party vulnerabilities, and zero-day vulnerabilities. It can also find and fix security problems before they become a problem.
The patch control features are by far the best thing about this tool. IT teams can rely on the tool to automatically download, test, and distribute patches to fix vulnerabilities in the OS and third-party applications.
Website: Vulnerability Manager Plus
#6) Criminal IP
Criminal IP is the best CTI search engine and OSINT tool for looking up details about IPv4 networks worldwide. When you put an IP address into the web-based search engine, it gives you a complete report with detailed information about that IP address based on the most recent port scan information for that IP address.
Based on AI machine learning technology, Criminal IP analyzes IP addresses and gives information about open ports, apps, security flaws, WHOIS information, and other things. It is also good at finding VPN IPs, Tor IPs, Hosting IPs, Blacklist IPs, and even the actual IP address behind secret IP addresses.
It can also find and scan for IoT devices, domains, and more, in addition to IP addresses and networks. Another benefit of Criminal IP is that API interaction makes it easy to add data to systems that are already in place.
Key features:
- AI machine learning is used to power a search engine that works on the web.
- Details like WHOIS, CVE, apps, blocklist, and open ports for IP addresses are analyzed and given.
- Find different kinds of IPs, like VPN, Tor, and Hosting IPs.
- SaaS (Software as a Service) that doesn’t need to be installed.
- With the points that are given, you can get a free membership plan.
Website: Criminal IP
#7) PRTG Network Monitor
The powerful PRTG Network Monitor can monitor your entire system. The PRTG Network Monitor can monitor all the systems, devices, data, and apps in your IT infrastructure. It has all the necessary features, so you don’t need any extra apps.
The system is simple to use and works for businesses of all sizes. Monitors the ability and use of a network based on a standard like SNMP and gives you a web-based interface. Has features like a detailed reporting system, a customizable alert system, and an entire network tracking system.
Key Features:
- PRTG Network Monitor will tell you how much bandwidth your devices and apps use, which will help you determine where bottlenecks are coming from.
- With PRTG sensors and SQL queries, you set up yourself, you can monitor specific database records.
- It can give you much information about each program on your network.
- You can control and keep an eye on all of your computing services from a central location.
- It has many more functions and features for Server Monitoring, LAN Monitoring, SNMP, etc.
Website: PRTG Network Monitor
#8) Perimeter 81
With Perimeter 81, companies get a cloud-based tool that works well with both on-premises and cloud-based resources, giving them more control and visibility over their network.
It also has many advanced security features, like multi-factor authentication, traffic encryption, device posture check, real-time tracking, etc. These features work together to make it easy and safe for businesses to control and keep an eye on their network.
Key Features:
- Real-time monitoring dashboard with beautiful graphs to look at network data.
- For better network security, use several different types of encryption protocols.
- Make it more challenging for hackers to get into your network by giving each user their own access rules.
- Integrates with applications and services on-premises and in the cloud to give great network insight and control.
- Encrypt the link automatically when connecting to an open Wi-Fi network.
Price: Perimeter 81 has four plans for all kinds of businesses. The plan that costs the least starts at $8 per user per month. The following two plans are premium and premium plus, which cost $12 and $16 per user per month, respectively. There is also a unique plan for businesses.
Website: Perimeter 81
#9) OpenVAS
Key Features:
- The Open Vulnerability Assessment System (OpenVAS) is a free tool for checking network security.
- GNU General Public Licence is the license for many parts of OpenVAS.
- The Security Scanner is the most critical part of OpenVAS, but it only works with Linux.
- It can be used to write security tests with Open Security Assessment Language (OVAL).
OpenVAS gives you the following options for scanning:
- Full scan: Full network scanning.
- Web server scan: For web server and web application scanning.
- WordPress Scan: For WordPress vulnerability and WordPress web server issues.
- It has proven a powerful tool for checking networks for security holes with an intelligent custom scan.
Website: OpenVAS
#10) Wireshark
Key Features:
- Wireshark is a cross-platform, open-source network protocol analyzer.
- It checks for data flaws on a live network between a client and a server.
- You can see what’s happening in the network and follow the stream.
- Wireshark works on OSX, Windows, and Linux.
- It shows how a TCP session’s stream is built and comes with tshark, a tcpdump desktop version (tcpdump is a command-line packet analyzer).
- The only problem with Wireshark is that it has been hacked from a distance.
Website: Wireshark
Conclusion
Monitoring a network is one of the most important things you can do to keep hackers out. This job can be made much easier with Network Scanning Tools. Rapid scanning of network problems lets us know how network threats will affect us in the future and helps us devise a plan to stop them.
In today’s world, every major software company that works online uses Network Scanning Tools to ensure their system is ready to work on a network without losing speed because of network attacks. This gives users confidence in the system.
We looked at the most popular and widely used network scanning tools in this piece. There could be a lot more besides these. To fix network problems, you can choose the best option for your machine based on how your network works.
Tools will help you keep people from getting into your network through the holes it has.