Network Scanner Tool For Mac

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Best Network Scanning Tools (Top Network and IP Scanner) for top-notch Network Security:

Quickly scan your subnets for any hardware with an IP address, including Windows and Mac computers plus, routers, switches, printers, and more. Need more details to audit your network? Gather info like manufacturer, MAC address, open ports, hardware details, and installed software. The Network Utility app is included with your Mac. It provides information and tools to help you with your network. Network Utility shows information about each of your network connections, including the hardware address of the interface, the IP addresses assigned to it, its speed and status, a count of data packets sent and received, and a.

The network is a vast term in the world of technology. The network is known as the backbone of the telecommunication system which is used to share data and resources using data link.

The next term that comes into the frame is Network Security. Network Security consists of a set of rules, policies, and instructions that are accepted to monitor and prevent the misuse and unauthorized manipulation of a network.

Network scanning deals with Network Security and this is an activity that identifies network vulnerabilities and the loopholes to safeguard your network from unwanted and unusual behavior that can harm your system. It can harm even your personal and confidential information.

This article will brief you about the most popular Network Scanning Tools that are available in the market along with their official links and key features for your easy understanding.

What You Will Learn:

  • Top Network Scanning Tools (IP and Network Scanner)

What is Network Scanning?

Network Scanning is a process which can be defined in many ways, it identifies the active hosts (Clients and servers) on a network and their activities to attack a network. It is also being used by attackers to hack the system.

This procedure is used for system maintenance and security assessment of a network.

In short, Network Scanning process includes:

  • Identifying filtering systems between two active hosts on a network.
  • Running UDP and TCP network services.
  • Detect TCP Sequence Number of both the hosts.

Network Scanning also refers to Port Scanning in which the data packets are sent to a specified port number.

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Top Network Scanning Tools (IP and Network Scanner)

Review of the best Network Scanner Tools which are widely used to detect network vulnerabilities.

#1) Acunetix:

Acunetix Online includes a fully automated network scanning tool that detects and reports on over 50,000 known network vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.

It discovers open ports and running services; assesses security of routers, firewalls, switches and load balancers; tests for weak passwords, DNS zone transfer, badly configured Proxy Servers, weak SNMP community strings and TLS/SSL ciphers, among others. It integrates with Acunetix Online to provide a comprehensive perimeter network security audit on top of the Acunetix web application audit.

Network scanning tool is available for free for up to 1 year!

=> Visit Official website: Acunetix Online

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#2) OpenVAS:

Key Features:

  • The Open Vulnerability Assessment System(OpenVAS) is a free network security scanning tool.
  • Many components of OpenVAS are licensed under GNU General Public License.
  • The major component of OpenVAS is the Security Scanner which runs in Linux environment only.
  • It can be integrated with Open Vulnerability Assessment Language (OVAL) to write vulnerability tests.
  • Scanning options provided by OpenVAS are:
    • Full scan: Full network scanning.
    • Web server scan: For web server and web applications scanning.
    • WordPress Scan: For WordPress vulnerability and WordPress web server issues.
  • Proven as a powerful network vulnerability scanning tool with an intelligent custom scan.

Mac Address Scanner

Official Link: OpenVAS

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#3) Wireshark:

Key Features:

Network scanner tool for windows 10
  • Wireshark is an open source tool which is known as multi-platform network protocol analyzer.
  • It scans data vulnerabilities on a live network between the active client and server.
  • You can view network traffic and follow the network stream.
  • Wireshark runs on Windows, Linux as well on OSX.
  • It shows the stream construction of TCP session and includes tshark which is a tcpdump console version (tcpdump is a packet analyzer that runs on a command line).
  • The only issue with Wireshark is that it has suffered from Remote Security Exploitation.
Network

Official Link: Wireshark https://insidernin.netlify.app/free-antivirus-tool-for-mac.html.

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#4) Nikto:

Key Features:

  • It is an open source web server scanner.
  • It performs rapid testing to recognize suspicious behavior on the network along with any network program that can exploit network traffic.
  • Some of the best features of Nikto are:
    • Full HTTP proxy support.
    • Customized reporting in XML, HTML and CSV formats.
  • Scanning features of Nikto are updated automatically.
  • It checks for HTTP servers, web server options and server configurations.

Official Link: Nikto

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#5) Angry IP Scanner:

Key Features:

  • It is a free and open source network scanning utility with the ability to scan IP address and also performs port scan effectively and rapidly.
  • The scan report consists of information such as hostname, NetBIOS (Network Basic Input/Output System), MAC address, computer name, workgroup information etc.
  • Report generation is in CSV, Txt and/or XML format.
  • It is based on Multi-threaded Scanning approach which is a separate scanning thread for each individual IP address, helps to improve the scanning process.

Official Link: Angry IP Scanner

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#6) Advanced IP Scanner:

Key Features:

  • It is a free and open source network scanning tool that works in Windows environment.
  • It can detect and scan any device on a network including wireless devices.
  • It allows services Viz. HTTPS, RDP etc. and FTP services on the remote machine.
  • It performs multiple activities such as remote access, remote wake-on-LAN and quick shut down.

Official Link: Advanced IP Scanner

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#7) Qualys Freescan:

Key Features:

  • Qualys Freescan is a free and open source network scanning tool that provide scans for URLs, Internet IPs and local servers to detect security loopholes.
  • There are 3 types being supported by Qualys Freescan:
    • Vulnerability checks: For malware and SSL related issues.
    • OWASP: Web applications security checks.
    • SCAP checks: Checks computer network configuration against Security Contents i.e.; SCAP.
  • Qualys Freescan allows only 10 free scans. Hence, you cannot use it for regular network scan.
  • Helps to detect network issues and security patches to get rid of it.

Official Link: Qualys Freescan

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#8) SoftPerfect Network Scanner:

Key Features:

  • It is a freeware network scanning utility with advanced scanning features known as Multi-thread IPv4/IPv6 Scanning.
  • Provides information such as hostname, MAC address that is connected to LAN network based on SNMP, HTTP, and NetBIOS.
  • It also collects information about local and external IP address, remote wake-on-LAN and shut down.
  • Helps to enhance the network performance and identifies the working state of devices on a network to check the availability a network.
  • This tool is proven good for the multi-protocol environment.

Official Link: SoftPerfect Network Scanner

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#9) Retina Network Security Scanner:

Key Features:

  • Beyond Trust’s Retina Network Security Scanner is a vulnerability scanner and solution that also provides security patch for Microsoft, Adobe, and Firefox applications.
  • It is a standalone network vulnerability scanner that supports risk assessment based on optimal network performance, Operating System, and applications.
  • It is a free tool which requires Windows server that provides security patches free up to 256 IPs.
  • This tool performs scanning as per the credentials provided by the user and also allows a user to choose the type of report delivery.

Official Link: Retina Network Security Scanner

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#10) Nmap:

Key Features:

  • Nmap as the name suggests, it maps your network and its ports numerically hence it is also known as Port Scanning Tool.
  • Nmap comes with NSE (Nmap Scripting Engine) scripts to detect network security issues and misconfiguration.
  • It is a free tool that checks for host availability by examining the IP packets.
  • Nmap is a complete suite that is available in GUI and CLI( Command Line Interface) version.
  • It includes the following utilities:
    • Zenmap with advanced GUI.
    • Ndiff for computer scan results.
    • NPing for Response Analysis.

Official Link: Nmap

#11) Nessus:

Key Features:

  • It is a widely used network security scanner that works with UNIX system.
  • The tool was formerly free and open source but now it is available as a commercial software.
  • The free version of Nessus is available with limited security features.
  • Major security features of Nessus includes:
    • Web-based interface
    • Client-Server architecture
    • Remote and local security checks
    • Built-in plug-ins
  • Nessus today is available with 70,000+ plug-ins and services/functionalities such as malware detection, web application scanning, and system configuration check etc.
  • The advance feature of Nessus is automated scanning, multi-network scanning, and asset discovery.
  • Nessus is available with 3 versions which include Nessus Home, Nessus Professional, and Nessus Manager/Nessus Cloud.

Official Link: Nessus

#12) Metasploit Framework:

Key Features:

  • This tool was primarily a Penetration Testing Tool but now it is being used as Network Scanning Tool that detects network exploit.
  • It was an open-source tool initially but in 2009 it was acquired by Rapid7 and got introduced as a commercial tool.
  • An open-source and free edition is available with limited security features known as Community Edition.
  • Advance edition of Metasploit is available as Express Edition and full-featured edition as Pro Edition.
  • Metasploit Framework includes Java-based GUI whereas Community Edition, express, and Pro Edition include web-based GUI.

Official Link: Metasploit Framework

#13) Snort:

Key Features:

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  • Snort is known as free and open-source network intrusion detection and prevention system.
  • It analyses network traffic with IP address passing through it.
  • Snort is able to detect worm, port scan and other network exploit through protocol analysis and content searching.
  • Snort uses Modular Detection Engine and Basic Analysis along with Security Engine(BASE) to describe network traffic.

Official Link: Snort

#14) OpenSSH:

Key Features:

  • SSH(Secure Shell) helps to establish secure and encrypted communication over an insecure network link between untrusted hosts.
  • OpenSSH is an open-source tool dedicated to UNIX environment.
  • Access internal network using a single point access through SSH.
  • It is known as Premier Connectivity Tool that encrypts the network traffic and eliminates network issues like eavesdropping, untrusted connection and connection hijacking between two hosts.
  • Provides SSH tunneling, server authentication, and secure network configuration.

Official Link: OpenSSH

#15) Nexpose:

Key Features:

  • Nexpose is a commercial network scanning tool that is available free as its Community Edition.
  • It comes with scanning capabilities of the network, operating systems, application database etc.
  • Provides web-based GUI that can be installed on Windows and Linux operating systems and even on virtual machines.
  • Nexpose Community Edition includes all solid features to analyze the network.

Official Link: Nexpose

#15) Fiddler:

Key Features:

  • Fiddler by Telerik is popular as Web Debugging Tool that analyzes HTTP traffic.
  • Fiddler scans traffic between chosen computers over a network and analyzes sent and received data packets to monitor request and response between hosts.
  • Fiddler can decrypt HTTP traffic and is also being used for system performance and security testing of web applications.
  • Comes with the feature to capture the HTTP traffic automatically and allows you to choose processes for which you want to capture the HTTP traffic.

Network Scanner Tool For Sharp

Official Link: Fiddler

Few other tools

Apart from these tools, there are many other tools that are being used for scanning the network traffic.

Let us take a quick look at them.

#16)Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector:

It quickly examines Wi-Fi network with all its vulnerabilities. It is a powerful tool to troubleshoot Wi-Fi issues. Helps to check integrity and performance of your Wi-Fi network

#17)GFI LanGuard:

This commercial tool is used to scan small as well as large networks. Runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS. This tool allows analyzing your network state from any location at any time.

#18)Total Network Monitor:

This tool monitors local network with working hosts and services on it. It reports you with colors such as Green for the successful result, Red for negative and black for an incomplete process.

#19)MyLanViewer Network/IP Scanner:

It is a popular tool for network IP scanning Wake-On-LAN, remote shutdown and NetBIOS. It is a user- friendly tool that represents your network state in an easy to analyze way.

#20)Splunk:

It is a data collection and analysis utility that collects and analyzes data such as TCP/UDP traffic, services and event logs on a network to notify you when your network catches up with some issues.

#21)NetXMS:

The open -source tool works in a multi-platform environment and its major feature is that it supports multiple operating systems, databases and performs analysis on a distributed network.

It provides a web-based interface along with the management console and is known as Network Management and Monitoring System.

#22)NetworkMiner:

NetworkMiner is Network Forensic Analysis Tool (NFAT) for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Gathers information about live ports, hostname, and works as Packet Capture Tool or Passive Network Sniffer.

The tool helps to perform Advance Network Traffic Analysis (NTA).

#23)Icinga2:

This is a Linux based open source network monitoring tool which is used to examine network availability and notify the users about network issues. Icinga2 provides business intelligence for in-depth and detailed analysis of the network.

#24)Capsa Free:

Monitors and analyzes network traffic and help to resolve network issues. Supports 300 network protocols and provides customized report system.

#25)PRTG Network Monitor Freeware:

Monitors network ability and usage based on a protocol such as SNMP and provides a web-based interface. Possesses feature like detailed reporting, flexible alert system, and comprehensive network monitoring but the tool is limited up to 10 sensors only.

Conclusion

Network monitoring is a crucial activity to prevent any network from intrusions. Network Scanning Tools can make this task a much easier one. Rapid scanning of networks issues make us aware of the future influence of network attacks and helps us to prepare a prevention plan to avoid them.

In Today's world, each and every major software industry working on online perspective makes use of Network Scanning Tools to prepare their system stand on a network without losing its performance due to network attacks, which, in turn, makes the users to trust the system.

In this article, we have reviewed the most popular and widely used network scanning tools. There may be much more apart from these. You can choose the best suitable for your system according to your network behavior to overcome network issues.

Tools will definitely help you to prevent your network from intrusions through its loopholes.

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Recommended Reading

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.

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.

Best search engine for mac os x 10.6.8. But if they haven’t been encoded in 64-bit or MPEG, the newest version of QuickTime might not be able to play them. Are you sure you want to open it?' Video formats are constantly changing, and you no doubt have all sorts of movie files littering your Mac’s drive. A dialogue box may pop up telling you a certain app 'is an application downloaded from the Internet. Click Open to proceed with the installation.

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!

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