Network mapper or Nmap is a free and open source tool that is used to map out your network and check for vulnerabilities. This is widely used even to this date and remains as the most popular scanner due to its open source code base that can be modified. They also have zenmap tool for nmap which adds graphical interface for beginners to make it more user friendly.
Nmap scans ports and identify the devices like routers, switches, servers to provide details on how everything is connected. It can be used to detect unauthorized devices as well, for example, shadow IT asset like a unauthorized game server that is draining company’s bandwidth. Not only does Nmap detect assets and links them together to provide a map, it also provides fingerprinting which is pretty much all the details like vendor of the device, the operating system versions, and so on. You can even go deeper and get reports on which specific applications are running as well.
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