Network Scanning Tool Windows 10
Earlier I had written a post on how to detect WiFi leechers on your network and mentioned a couple of smartphone apps you could use to scan your home network. The apps do a pretty good job of scanning your network automatically and giving you some details on each device.
Windows Network Scanner. Let’s start off with a free tool for Windows PCs called SoftPerfect Network Scanner. I like this tool because it’s updated often, runs on Windows 10 and has a 32-bit and 64-bit version. The Open Vulnerability Assessment System (OpenVAS) is a free network security scanner platform, with most components licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). The main component is.
I didn’t go into much detail about the apps in that post since it was focused on catching unauthorized users on your network. In this article, I’ll talk in more detail about these two apps that can be used on Apple or Android devices and I’ll also mention desktop apps that you can run on Windows and Mac OS X.
These network scanning tools allow you to not only see all the devices on your network and their IP addresses, but also view folders shares, open TCP/UDP ports, hardware MAC addresses and more. So why would you care about this information?
Though it’s a bit technical, the information can help you make your network more secure. For example, you may find folders that are being shared on your network by accident. Anyone who connects to your network via cable or wireless could then easily search for shared folders and copy that data to their computer.
When looking at open ports for a computer or device, you can easily see whether remote desktop is enabled, whether an FTP or HTTP server is running and whether file sharing is enabled or not. If you never connect to your computer remotely, then having remote desktop enabled is just a security risk.
Windows Network Scanner
Let’s start off with a free tool for Windows PCs called SoftPerfect Network Scanner. I like this tool because it’s updated often, runs on Windows 10 and has a 32-bit and 64-bit version. The program also doesn’t require any installation, which means you can carry it on a USB stick or save it to Dropbox and use it on any computer you want.
When you run the executable file for your version of Windows (determine if you have 32-bit or 64-bit Windows), you might see a message saying that Windows Firewall has blocked the program. Make sure Private networks is checked and then click on Allow access.
Once the program loads, you’ll need to enter your network starting and ending IP address range. If you don’t know this, don’t worry. Just click on Options, IP Address and then click on Auto Detect Local IP Range.
You’ll get a popup window with the detected IP addresses for IPv4 and IPv6 on any network cards you have installed, including virtual ones. For most home users, you’re only going to see one item listed under both IPv4 and IPv6. Unless you have IPv6 setup, you should click on the network card listed under IPv4.
Now you’ll be brought to the main interface again, but now the IP address range will be filled in. You’ll see the Start Scanning button at the right, which you can click to start a scan.
However, you should first set the scanning options before performing a scan. Click on Options and then Program Options. On the General tab, the only option you may want to check is Always analyze device. By default, the scanning program will only show you devices that respond to certain requests, so the final list may not show all the devices that are actually on your network because some devices simply do not respond.
The scan does take quite a bit longer (several minutes compared to several seconds), but it’s worth it if you really want to see every device on your network. The Additional and Workstation tabs are really only useful for corporate environments where you have many machines on the same network and you want to get information about each computer. The Ports tab is where we can to go next.
Check the Check for open TCP ports box and then click on the little paper icon at the far right of the text box. This will open another window that lists out some TCP port groups. You want to click on HTTP and Proxy and then press the SHIFT key and click on Database servers to select all three items.
Back on the main screen, you should see all the port numbers listed in the text box. Go ahead and also check all the boxes for open UDP ports. At this point, click OK to go back to the main program screen. Now click Start Scanning and you should see results slowly added to the list.
In my tests, the program was able to find 16 devices on the network when checking the Always analyze device option compared to just 11 items when not checked. Any item with a plus sign to the left of the IP address means that it has shared folders. You can click on the + sign to see the shared folders.
The Host Name column should give you an easy to understand name for the device. On the right, you’ll see a column called TCP Ports, which will list out all the open ports for that device. Obviously, the numbers don’t make much sense unless you know what they means, so check out this Wikipedia page that describes each port number in detail.
If anything has port 80 (HTTP) listed, that usually means it has some kind of web interface and you can try connecting to it via your browser by simply typing in the IP address. Port 443 is for secure HTTP (HTTPS), which means you can connect to it securely also.
Mac Network Scanner
On the Mac, you have a couple of options. LanScan is a free app on the Mac Store that does a very simple scan and displays the IP address, MAC address, Hostname and Vendor. The free version will only list the first four hostnames fully and the rest will only show the first three characters. A little annoying, but probably not a huge deal on most home networks.
You’ll also notice that it only found 12 items and that’s because it doesn’t have any options to scan each IP address regardless of whether it responds or not. A better network scanner for the Mac is Angry IP Scanner shown below. It’s open source and works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
By default, the program also scans open ports, which LanScan does not do. The only issue with this program is that you have to have Java installed in order to run the program. Java is a big security risk and is disabled on most Macs by default, so you would have to enable it manually.
Smartphone Apps
I have two apps that I use, both of which are free, and one that can you download on Apple devices or Android devices. Both apps are excellent and pretty much give you the same info, but each has its pluses and minuses.
Fing is a free app that is available on the Google Play store and the iTunes store and has a great looking interface. You don’t have to worry about entering any IP address range with these apps because they figure it out on their own. Once you start a scan with Fing, you’ll get a nice looking list of devices with some basic info like hostname, MAC address, IP address etc.
If you tap on a device, you’ll get another screen where you can give the device a custom name (a feature I really like), enter a location and even add additional notes. If you scroll down, you’ll see an option called Services, which lets you see scan the device for open ports.
The only downside I have seen with this app is that it doesn’t list out all the devices on the network. It only caught about 12 devices on my network out of the 16 that the Windows program had found.
The second app I like using is Net Analyzer, available from the App Store for free. You run a scan by tapping the Scan button at the top right and you’ll get a list of all your devices within a few seconds.
Using this app, I got 15 devices, which was pretty close to the total number of devices on the network. With Net Analyzer, you’ll also see some colored letters on devices that have certain services enabled. The green P means it is pingable, the brown B means Bonjour services are available (Apple devices), the red G means it’s a gateway device (router, etc), and a blue U means UPNP and DLNA services are available.
You can tap on a device to get more information and perform queries on the device. Tap the Query with Tools option shown below once you tap on a particular device.
On the next screen, you’ll see several options including Ping,Route, Ports, Whois and DNS. Tap on Ports, choose Common or All and then tap Start at the top.
As the scan progresses, you’ll see the ports that are open and active and also which ports are blocked. The app also has other tools that you can use to scan specific devices on the network to get more information.
Hopefully, these tools will allow you to fully see what devices are on your network and what services and ports are open. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!
Though you may know and follow basic security measures on your own when installing and managing your network and websites, you'll never be able to keep up with and catch all the vulnerabilities by yourself.
Vulnerability scanners can help you automate security auditing and can play a crucial part in your IT security. They can scan your network and websites for up to thousands of different security risks, producing a prioritized list of those you should patch, describe the vulnerabilities, and give steps on how to remediate them. Some can even automate the patching process.
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Though vulnerability scanners and security auditing tools can cost a fortune, there are free options as well. Some only look at specific vulnerabilities, but there are also those that offer broad IT security scanning. (Watch the slideshow version of this story.)
1. OpenVAS
The Open Vulnerability Assessment System (OpenVAS) is a free network security scanner platform, with most components licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). The main component is available via several Linux packages or as a downloadable Virtual Appliance for testing/evaluation purposes. Though the scanner itself doesn’t work on Windows machines, they offer clients for Windows.
The main component of the OpenVAS is the security scanner, which only can run in Linux. It does the actual work of scanning and receives a feed updated daily of Network Vulnerability Tests (NVT), more than 33,000 in total.
The OpenVAS Manager controls the scanner and provides the intelligence. The OpenVAS Administrator provides a command-line interface and can act as full service daemon, providing user management and feed management.
There are a couple clients to serve as the GUI or CLI. The Greenbone Security Assistant (GSA) offers a web-based GUI. The Greenbone Security Desktop (GSD) is a Qt-based desktop client that runs on various OSs, including Linux and Windows. And the OpenVAS CLI offers a command-line interface.
OpenVAS isn’t the easiest and quickest scanner to install and use, but it’s one of the most feature-rich, broad IT security scanners that you can find for free. It scans for thousands of vulnerabilities, supports concurrent scan tasks, and scheduled scans. It also offers note and false positive management of the scan results. However, it does require Linux at least for the main component.
2. Retina CS Community
Retina CS Community provides vulnerability scanning and patching for Microsoft and common third-party applications, such as Adobe and Firefox, for up to 256 IPs free. Plus it supports vulnerabilities within mobile devices, web applications, virtualized applications, servers, and private clouds. Pdf cookbooks online free. It looks for network vulnerabilities, configuration issues, and missing patches.
The Retina CS Community software essentially provides just the patching functionality. Retina Network Community is the software that provides the vulnerability scanning, which must be separately installed before the Retina CS Community software.
Retina CS Community installs on Windows Server 2008 or later, requires the .Net Framework 3.5 to be installed, IIS server enabled, and Microsoft SQL 2008 or later to be installed. Keep in mind, installation on Domain Controllers or Small Business Servers is not supported.
Once the software is installed you’re provided with a GUI program for Retina Network Community component and a web-based GUI for the Retina CS Community component. It supports different user profiles so you can align the assessment to your job function.
To scan you can choose from a variety of scan and report templates and specify IP range to scan or use the smart selection function. You can provide any necessary credentials for scanned assets that require them and choose how you want the report delivered, including email delivery or alerts.
Retina CS Community is a great free offering by a commercial vendor, providing scanning and patching for up to 256 IPs free and supporting a variety of assets. However, some small businesses may find the system requirements too stringent, as it requires a Windows Server.
3. Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA)
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) can perform local or remote scans on Windows desktops and servers, identifying any missing service packs, security patches, and common security misconfigurations. The 2.3 release adds support for Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 R2, and Windows Server 2012, while also supporting previous versions down to Windows XP.
MBSA is relatively straightforward to understand and use. When you open it you can select a single Windows machine to scan by choosing a computer name from the list or specifying an IP address or when scanning multiple machines you can choose an entire domain or specify an IP address range. You can then choose what you want to scan for, including Windows, IIS and SQL administrative vulnerabilities, weak passwords, and Windows updates.
Once the scan is complete you’ll find a separate report for each Windows machine scanned with an overall security classification and categorized details of the results. For each item you can click a link to read details on what was scanned and how to correct it, if a vulnerability were found, and for some you can click to see more result details. The reports are automatically saved for future reference, but you can also print and/or copy the report to the clipboard.
Although free and user-friendly, keep in mind that MBSA lacks scanning of advanced Windows settings, drivers, non-Microsoft software, and network-specific vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, it’s a great tool to help you find and minimize general security risks.
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4. Nexpose Community Edition
Nexpose Community Edition can scan networks, operating systems, web applications, databases, and virtual environments. The Community Edition, however, limits you to scanning up to 32 IPs at a time. It’s also limited to one-year of use until you must apply for a new license. They also offer a seven-day free trial of their commercial editions.
Nexpose installs on Windows, Linux, or virtual machines and provides a web-based GUI. Through the web portal you can create sites to define the IPs or URLs you’d like to scan, select the scanning preferences, scanning schedule, and provide any necessary credentials for scanned assets.
Once a site is scanned you’ll see a list of assets and vulnerabilities. You can see asset details including OS and software information and details on vulnerabilities and how to fix them. You can optionally set policies to define and track your desired compliance standards. You can also generate and export reports on a variety of aspects.
Nexpose Community Edition is a solid full-featured vulnerability scanner that’s easy to setup but the 32 IP limit may make it impractical for larger networks.
5. SecureCheq
SecureCheq can perform local scans on Windows desktops and servers, identifying various insecure advanced Windows settings like defined by CIS, ISO or COBIT standards. It concentrates on common configuration errors related to OS hardening, data protection, communication security, user account activity and audit logging. The free version, however, is limited to scanning less than two dozen settings, about a quarter of what the full version supports.
SecureCheq is a simple tool. After scanning the PC you’ll see a list of all the checked settings and a Passed or Failed result.
Click a setting and you’ll find links to references about the vulnerability, summary of the vulnerability, and how to fix it. Though you can’t save the results for later viewing in the application, you can print them or view/save the OVAL XML file.
Although SecureCheq is easy-to-use and scans for advanced configuration settings, it actually misses some of the more general Windows vulnerabilities and network-based threats. However, it complements the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) well; scan for basic threats and then follow up with SecureCheq for advanced vulnerabilities.
6. Qualys FreeScan
Qualys FreeScan provides up to 10 free scans of URLs or IPs of Internet facing or local servers or machines. You initially access it via their web portal and then download their virtual machine software if running scans on your internal network.
Qualys FreeScan supports a few different scan types; vulnerability checks for hidden malware, SSL issues, and other network-related vulnerabilities. OWASP is for auditing vulnerabilities of web applications. Patch Tuesday scans for and helps install missing software patches. SCAP checks computer settings compliance against the SCAP (Security Content Automation Protocol) benchmark provided by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Though you first see just an online tool that appears to just do scanning via the Internet, if you enter a local IP or scan, it will prompt you to download a virtual scanner via a VMware or VirtualBox image. This allows you to do scanning of your local network. Once a scan is complete you can view interactive reports by threat or by patch.
Since Qualys FreeScan only provides 10 free scans, it’s not something you can use regularly. Consider using another solution for day-to-day use and periodically run Qualys FreeScan for a double-check.
Eric Geieris a freelance tech writer—keep up with his writings on Facebook or Twitter. He’s also the founder of NoWiresSecurity, a cloud-based Wi-Fi security service, and On Spot Techs, a tech support company.