[ Thanks to LogError for this link.
]
“Lately, reactions to non-intrusive probes and network activity
that is merely unexpected are becoming increasingly hostile; a
result from increasing amounts of incidents and security threats.
From my perspective of security, overreactions to activities not
crossing authorization and legal boundaries, are leading to a
scenario where anyone acquiring basic information about a system
needs to be afraid about potential consequences. Seen under a wide
scope, this leads to network security no longer being
transparent.”
“Why a non-transparent security situation on the Internet is
bad? Obviously, it is a big advantage to malicious intruders
who have no legal concerns because they can conceal their identity
through compromised systems, and a big disadvantage to security
firms, admins and individuals who depend on a complete picture of
Internet security problems to solve them. Non-malicious, beneficial
large scale scans like the broadcast amplifier scanning projects
are becoming harder and riskier to perform using legal
resources.”
“Network scanning and corresponding tools evolved out of a
necessity to counter new intrusion methods after they were commonly
employed by system crackers. [1] A scanner is simply security
software that automates the process of making connections to a
service to determine its availability and version, which allows
drawing conclusions regarding security and potential vulnerability.
Scanning a host is the fastest way to identify its remote
vulnerabilities since it puts the analyst in the same perspective
as an attacker, seeing all possible holes.”