NewsFactor: Best Network Port Scanners for Linux

“Port scanning is a prosaic area of network security. For the
network administrator, it is the equivalent of knocking on all the
doors of a house to see if anyone is around. In an age when any
open holes in a network are dangerous, however, a simple port
scanner can be an invaluable tool.

“But there is no reason to run out and purchase a piece of
scanning software. There are numerous Linux-based scanning products
available for free, and two of them do as good a job as any
commercial product. Moreover, because these open-source products
are continually updated–by white-hat and black-hat hackers
alike–it also can be argued that they have a better handle on all
the ways network ports can be exploited.

“Though port scanning is a popular tool of attackers on the
prowl for services and applications they can penetrate, it also can
be used to defend networks by finding those holes first…”

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