Nmap, the widely used free and opensource utility for network discovering and security auditing, has released version 6.00 today bringing major improvements in all sectors.
The development team announced that “It is the product of almost three years of work, 3,924 code commits, and more than a dozen point releases since the big Nmap 5 release in July 2009. Nmap 6 includes a more powerful Nmap Scripting Engine, 289 new scripts, better web scanning, full IPv6 support, the Nping packet prober, faster scans, and much more! We recommend that all current users upgrade.”
Among the many improvements that took place, there are six that highlight greatly the evolution of the application.
- The Nmap scripting engine capabilities were greatly enriched. The script count has grown from 59 in Nmap 5 to 348 in Nmap 6.
- Nmap 6 offers better web scanning, keeping pace with the web-centric logic of web services.
- Full support for IPv6. Partial support was available since 2002.
- There is a new tool on this version of Nmap called Nping. This tool can be used for network packet generation, response analysis and response time measurement. Nping can generate network packets for a wide range of protocols, allowing full control over protocol headers.
- One of the things I like about Nmap is how easily it can be used through Zenmap, so I was glad to see that Zenmap GUI and the results viewer received many improvements, that include support for more languages and more user-friendly script selection interface.
- Nmap 6.0 scans faster than version 5.x. This is very important for Nmap users, as some scans could last for a very long time, thus sacrificing accuracy.
Visit Nmap website for fully detailed information about every improvement that took place on this version.
