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Nmap vs Advance Port Scanner
A Port Scanner is an important tool in any Computer Security Professional’s or Network
Administrator’s toolkit. A Port Scanner is a tool used to obtain information about a network such as
topology, online network endpoints and open ports. This review will be looking at Nmap and
Advance Port Scanner. The functionality, speed and accuracy will be compared as well as the ease of
use.
Advance Port Scanner basic details:
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File Size: 426 kb
Operating System Compatibility: Windows 95/98/ME/NT4.0/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008 and
Windows 7 (32Bit and 64 Bit)
Interface:
(Advance Port Scanner, 2014)
Nmap basic details:
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File size: 25.6 mb (Windows GUI version)
19.1 mb (Windows Command line version)
Operating System Compatibility: Windows NT, including 2K, XP, Vista, Windows 7, and
Server 2003/2008, Mac OS X, Linux (all distributions), FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Sun
Solaris, Amiga, HP-UX
Interface:
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-Zenmap is the GUI version of Nmap.
(Nmap, 2014)
The first consideration of each software application is the size, as shown above. Advance Port
Scanner (APS) is by far smaller than Nmap. Nmap is the more universal scanner due to its
Operating System compatibility. Nmap can run on a server where as APS can only run on a local
windows machine.
The difference of each program’s capabilities and functionalities are listed:
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Advance Port Scanner:
o Default Multithreading
o Default to Telnet
o NetBios retrieving
o Default 2 different scanning types
Nmap:
o Default Single-Threaded
o Topology drawing tools
o Powerful scripting capabilities
o Default 10 different scanning types
o Built in scripting engine
o Online library of available scripts
o OS Detection
o Firewall/IDS Evasion and spoofing
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The comparison of the functionality of Nmap and Advance Port Scanner (APS) shows that Nmap has
more functionality and gives more freedom to a user, where as APS is only a small port scanner with
very limited settings and customizable options. The scripting in Nmap makes it allot more
convenient for a person to do repetitive work or a scan on very big networks with allot of subnets.
In APS the task of scanning separate networks can be done but with more effort than Nmap and has
to be done manually i.e. with someone operating the machine at each separate scan. Another
positive of Nmap is that the available scripting library makes it easier for a person to download an
already written script for a specific situation and use it instead of having to do the scan manually or
having to waste time writing and testing a script.
With Nmap the setting and options have to be changed and maintained on each specific scan where
as Advance Port Scanner(APS) it is not needed. Retrieving the NetBios with APS is easier and quicker
than with Nmap where a specific script is needed. Using APS is quicker than Nmap if the network
scan is simple, but if the network is more complex Nmap is better, for it has the ability to run scripts
that do the work instead of a person having to do it manually like in APS.
A scan was done on a local network with both programs and the results shown:
Advance Port Scanner:
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Nmap:
All IPs are covered to protect the owner/s.
When comparing the results of each program’s basic scan, it is clear that there is no better scanner
for both did a good job at detecting all devices on the network at roughly the same speed. When
using a more advance method of scanning, Nmap showed greater detail about the detected devices
than Advance Port Scanner’s advance scan. The results that were gathered in both programs are
detailed and easily understood.
Nmap has the additional functionality to display a topological map of the network, here is an
example from the Nmap website:
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(The “Topology” tab)
This is a very handy tool for Security Experts or Network Administrators.
My recommendation:
I recommend Nmap, because the built in and extra functionality available make it allot more time
efficient to use over the long term than Advance Port Scanner. Advance Port Scanner is a handy and
small tool to be used in smaller network applications and is limited to only small networks. The
main reason to consider Nmap is its scripting capability, scripting allows for automated work to be
done and the automation of sorting of the retrieved data, this makes it a big time saver when
repetitive work has to be done, or allot of result data is collected and need to be sorted.
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Resource List:
Advance Port Scanner. Computer Software 2014. Available at:
<http://www.radmin.com/download/previousversions/portscanner.php> [ Accessed 10/10/2014 ]
The “Topology” tab image. Available at: < http://nmap.org/book/zenmap-results.html OR
http://nmap.org/book/images/zenmap-fig-tab-topology.png > [Accessed 10/10/2014]
Nmap. Computer Software 2014. Available at: < http://nmap.org/download.html> [Accessed
10/10/2014]