Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:36:08 -0800
From: Fyodor <fyodor@...ecure.org>
To: bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Nmap Security Scanner 3.50 Released


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Hello Bugtraq,

I am pleased to announce the immediate, free availability of the Nmap
Security Scanner version 3.50 from http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ .
Actually it was released a few weeks back, but I wanted to ensure it
is actually stable :).

Nmap ("Network Mapper") is an open source utility for network
exploration or security auditing. It was designed to rapidly scan
large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses
raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on
the network, what services (application name and version) they are
offering, what operating system (and OS version) they are running,
what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other
characteristics. Nmap runs on most types of computers, including
Linux/BSD/Mac OS X, and Windows. Both console and graphical versions
are available. Nmap is free software, available with full source code
under the terms of the GNU GPL.

To reduce Bugtraq traffic, I rarely post more than one Nmap
announcement per year.  The last time was Nmap 3.00 in 2002.  To keep
up with all new versions and other Nmap-related announcements, you are
invited to join the nmap-hackers list by sending a blank email to
nmap-hackers-subscribe@...ecure.org .  Or read the archives at
http://seclists.org .

CHANGES

Nmap has undergone many substantial changes since 3.00 and we
recommend that all current users upgrade. Improvements from 41
intermediate releases have gone into 3.50. Here are a list of the most
important advantages (For a much more detailed list, see
http://www.insecure.org/nmap/nmap_changelog.html ):

o An advanced service/version detection system was added after months
  of private development. Now instead of using a simple nmap-services
  table lookup to determine a port's likely purpose, Nmap will (if
  asked) interrogate that TCP or UDP port to determine what service is
  really listening. In many cases it can determine the application
  name and version number as well. IPv6, SSL encryption, and SunRPC
  program number brute forcing are all supported. Thanks to a huge
  number of contributors, the database now contains more than a
  thousand signatures, representing 180 unique service protocols from
  acap, afp, and aim to xml-rpc, zebedee, and zebra.

o The OS detection database has also improved dramatically. There are
  now 1,121 fingerprints in the DB (from 700 in 3.30). Most recently
  added were Linux 2.6.X, Mac OS X up to 10.3.2 (Panther), OpenBSD 3.4
  (normal and pf "scrub all"), FreeBSD 5.2, the latest Windows
  Longhorn warez, and Cisco PIX 6.3.3. As usual, there are a ton of
  new consumer devices from ubiquitous D-Link, Linksys, and Netgear
  broadband routers to a number of new IP phones including the Cisco
  devices commonly used by Vonage.

o MS Windows support has improved substantially. Newer features such
  as version detection are supported, and the Windows port is also
  faster and more stable.

o Mac OS X is now fully supported

o SCO Corporation of Lindon, Utah (formerly Caldera) has lately taken
  to an extortion campaign of demanding license fees from Linux users
  for code that they themselves knowingly distributed under the terms
  of the GNU GPL. They have also refused to accept the GPL, claiming
  that some preposterous theory of theirs makes it invalid (and even
  unconstitutional)! Meanwhile they have distributed GPL-licensed Nmap
  in (at least) their "Supplemental Open Source CD". In response to
  these blatant violations, and in accordance with section 4 of the
  GPL, we terminated SCO's rights to redistribute any versions of Nmap
  in any of their products, including (without limitation) OpenLinux,
  Skunkware, OpenServer, and UNIXWare. We have also stopped supporting
  the OpenServer and UNIXWare platforms.

o Major changes were made to the NmapFE UNIX GUI. It now uses tabs and
  supports all of the major Nmap command-line options. Most of this
  work was done by Peter Marschall (peter(a)adpm.de).

o Nmap output is more concise and prettier, thanks to a new
  NmapOutputTable class that reduces extraneous whitespace. This makes
  it easier to read, and also leaves more room for version info and
  possibly future enhancements.

o Major parts of the codebase have been rewritten. Nmap now compiles
  with C++ rather than ANSI C, and it lightly uses the Standard
  Template Library (STL). The excellent libpcre (Perl Compatible
  Regular Expressions) library has been added, as has a custom
  parallel socket library (nsock). Libpcap has been updated to version
  0.7.2, and the latest autoconf version is being used.

o Every one of the OS fingerprints was examined to normalize the
  descriptions. I also looked up what all of the devices are (thanks
  E*Bay and Google!). Results like "Nexland ISB Pro800 Turbo" and
  "Siemens 300E Release 6.5" are much more useful when followed by
  "cable modem" and "business phone system"

o Added a new classification system to nmap-os-fingerprints. In
  addition to the standard text description, each entry is now
  classified by vendor name (e.g. Sun), underlying OS (e.g. Solaris),
  OS generation (e.g. 7), and device type ("general purpose", router,
  switch, game console, etc). This can be useful if you want to (say)
  locate and eliminate the SCO systems on a network, or find the
  wireless access points (WAPs) by scanning from the wired side.

o Nmap will now sometimes guess the remote operating system in the "no
  exact matches" case, even if you don't use the secret --osscan_guess
  or --fuzzy options.

o Nmap now compiles under Amiga thanks to patches sent by Diego
  Casorran (dcr8520(a)amiga.org).

o Added UDP-based "ping" scanning. The -PU option can take an optional
  portlist like the TCP "ping" options (-PS, -PA), but it sends a UDP
  packet to the targets and expects hosts that are up to reply with a
  port unreachable (or possibly a UDP response if the port is
  open). This one is likely to work best against closed ports, since
  many open ports don't respond to empty requests.

o The random IP input option (-iR) now takes an argument specifying
  how many IPs you want to scan (e.g. -iR 1000). This reduces the risk
  of forgetting about a scan and leaving it running all night, then
  waking up to angry mail from your ISP :). Specify 0 for the old
  never-ending scan behavior.

o Made substantial changes to the SYN/connect()/Window scanning
  algorithms for improved speeds, especially against heavily filtered
  hosts. Also made numerous improvements to the timing behavior of 
  "-T Aggressive" (same as -T4) scans. -T4 is now recommended for regular
  use by users on broadband or direct ethernet connections. One scan
  against a firewalled host that took 556 seconds with 3.15BETA2 now
  takes only 41 seconds with Nmap 3.50 and the -T4 option.

o Added support for a brand new "port" that many people have never
  scanned before! UDP & TCP "port 0" (and IP protocol 0) are now
  permitted if you specify 0 explicitly. An argument like "-p -40"
  would still scan ports 1-40. Unlike ports, protocol 0 IS now scanned
  by default. This now works for ping probes too (e.g., -PS, -PA).

o Applied patch by Martin Kluge (martin(a)elxsi.info) which adds --ttl
  option, which sets the outgoing IPv4 TTL field in packets sent via
  all raw scan types (including ping scans and OS detection). A TTL of
  0 is supported, and even tends to work on a LAN:

    14:17:19.474293 192.168.0.42.60214 > 192.168.0.40.135: S 326:326(0) [ttl 0]
    14:17:19.474456 192.168.0.40.135 > 192.168.0.42.60214: S 280:280(0) ack 326 (ttl 128)

o added a new --datadir command line option which allows you to
  specify the highest priority directory for Nmap data files
  nmap-services, nmap-os-fingerprints, and nmap-rpc. Any files which
  aren't in the given dir, will be searched for in the $NMAPDIR
  environmental variable, ~/nmap/, a compiled in data directory
  (e.g. /usr/share/nmap), and finally the current directory.

o To emphasize the highly professional nature of Nmap, all instances
  of "fucked up" in error message text has been changed to "b0rked".

o IPv6 is now supported for many of the most important scan types,
  including TCP scan (-sT), connect()-style ping scan (-sP), list scan
  (-sL), and version detection. Just specify the -6 option and the
  IPv6 numbers or DNS names. Netmask notation is not currently
  supported -- I'm not sure how useful it is for IPv6, where even
  petty end users may be allocated trillions of addresses (/80).

o Multiple TCP/UDP ports can now be specified for the "ping scanning
  phase". You can also now specify multiple ping types (e.g. UDP, TCP
  SYN, ICMP echo request, and TCP ACK). So you can now do combinations
  such as "-PS22,53,80 -PT113 -PN -PE" in order to increase your odds
  of passing through strict filters.

o Reworked the "ping scan" algorithm (used for any scan except -P0 or
  -sL) to be more robust in the face of low-bandwidth and congested
  connections. This also improves reliability in the multi-port and
  multi-type ping cases described below.

o Applied patch by Max Schubert (nmap(a)webwizarddesign.com) which
  adds an add-port XML tag whenever a new port is found open when Nmap
  is running in verbose mode. The new tag looks like: [addport
  state="open" portid="22" protocol="tcp"/] I also updated
  docs/nmap.dtd to recognize this new tag.

o Added --packet_trace option, which tells Nmap to display all of the
  packets it sends and receives in a format similar to tcpdump. I
  mostly added this for debugging purposes, but people wishing to
  learn how Nmap works or for experts wanting to ensure Nmap is doing
  exactly what they expect.

o Hundreds of more minor features, bugfixes, and portability enhancements.

MOVING FORWARD:

With this "stable" version out of the way, we plan to dive headfirst
into the next development cycle. Many exciting features are in the
queue, including better multi-host parallelization, an OS detection
overhaul, and further version scanning features, such as intensity
levels. I am also working on a book describing Nmap, from port
scanning basics for novices to the types of packet crafting used by
advanced hackers. Much of this book will be made available for free
online. A few chapters should be available very soon. For the latest
news on Nmap and the book, consider joining the nmap-hackers list
discussed up top.

DOWNLOAD:

- From http://www.insecure.org/nmap

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

I would like to acknowledge and thank the many people who contributed
ideas and/or code to this release. Special thanks go out to A. Jones,
Albert Chin-A-Young, Alex Volkov, Al Smith, Amy Hennings, Andy
Lutomirski, Annalee Newitz, Axel Krauth, Axel Nennker, Ayamura
Kikuchi, Blue Boar, Brian Hatch, Chad Loder, Crayden Mantelium, Curt
Wilson, Darren Reed, Dean Bennett, Diego Casorran, Dmitry V. Levin,
Dragos Ruiu, Dug Song, Eric S. Raymond, Fejed, Florin Andrei, Frank
Berger, Fyodor Yarochkin, Gabriel L. Somlo, Gisle Vanem, Guido van
Rooij, HellNBack, HD Moore, Hubert Feyrer, Jan Roger Wilkens, Jari
Ruusu, Jaroslav Sladek, Javier Kohen, Jay Freeman (Saurik), Jeff
Nathan, jerickson_at_inphonic, Jochen Erwied, Josef 'Jupp' Schugt,
Juho Schultz, Justin A., Kevin Davis, Kirby Kuehl, Kronos, Lance
Spitzner, Lionel CONS, MadHat, Maik Pfeil, Marc Ruef, Mario Manno,
Marius Strobl, Martin Kluge, Matt Burnett, Matthieu Verbert, Matt
Selsky, Max Schubert, Max Vision, Michael Davis, Mikael Mannstrom,
Miscelerious Options, Mugz, Niels Heinen, Osamah Abuoun, Peter
Marschall, Petter Reinholdtsen, Phix, Pope_at_undersec, Przemek
Galczewski, R. Anderson, Rain.Forest.Puppy, ray_at_24hoursecurity,
Remi Denis-Courmont, Rob Foehl, Russel Miller, Ryan Lowe, Scott
Egbert, Sebastien Blanchet, Seth Master, Shawn Wallis, Simple Nomad,
Solar Designer, Solar Eclipse, Ste Jones, Stephen Bishop, Tammy
Rathbun, Tom Duffy, Tom Rune Flo, van Hauser, Wei Jiang, William
McVey, Will Saxon, Yeti, and everyone I forgot :).

And of course I would also like to thank the thousands of people who
have submitted OS and service/version fingerprints, as well as
everyone who has found and reported bugs or suggested features.

Cheers,
Fyodor

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