Assessment

Description

After undertaking initial stealthy reconnaissance to identify IP address spaces of interest, network scanning is an intrusive and aggressive process used to identify accessible hosts and their network services. Performing both network scanning and reconnaissance tasks paints a clear picture of the network topology and its security features.The rationale behind IP network scanning is to gain insight into the following elements of a given network:

• ICMP message types that generate responses from target hosts
• Accessible TCP and UDP network services running on the target hosts
• Operating platforms of target hosts and their configurations
• Areas of vulnerability within target host IP stack implementations (including sequence number predictability for TCP spoofing and session hijacking)
• Configuration of filtering and security systems (including firewalls, border routers, switches, and IDS/IPS mechanisms)
Source: Chris McNab (2008), Network Security Assessment, O'Reilly 2nd Edition

This assessment requires you to do literature search on internet, magazines, publications, textbook etc. This is an individual assignment, therefore it is very important to write the findings in your own words.

Choose ONE of the following topics:

1) ICMP Probing
2) TCP Port Scanning
3) UDP Port Scanning
4) IDS/IPS Evasion
5) Low Level IP Assessment

At minimum your report should address the following:

A) Discuss your chosen topic.
B) Explain what kind of security measures/threats it provides to the network.
C) Identify three security vulnerabilities.
D) Discuss how these threats can be mitigated.
E) Conclusion/Summarize.