Port Scanning

mayorredbeard

Daemon Poster
Messages
1,246
More and more white hat hacking has caught my attention. I've realized that most hackers use a port scanner to find weak ports in a network. So it's to my understanding that port scanners, and port scanning is legal? Correct?

Also, in a port scanner a hacker simply enters in a persons IP and it scans for weak ports correct? With this weak port what are the steps (be vaugue I understand you guys and I could probably get in trouble for getting too specific), that a hacker takes with this/these weak port(s) that he has to launch a malicious attack.
 
Port scanning itself as far as I'm aware is legal, but it serves no purpose to an outsider other than someone wanting to hack the system. It provides the hacker information on which ports are open, which can be read as, which services the target system is running. i.e port 21 FTP, port 23 telnet, etc etc this would then provide them with information gathering access and on some systems the ability to copy the systems home directory, containing root passwords, from the ftp thus granting them access as a super user.
P.S.Moderators: If this isn't vague enough feel free to edit it. I don't wish to convey malicious methods, but I feel that it best describes the functionality of port scanning without saying how to. (I don't know how either)
 
Back
Top Bottom