Reporting vulnerability checks

Nmap can be used as a vulnerability scanner with the help of some NSE scripts. While this is not Nmap's main objective, the vulnerability detection scripts available are great. The NSE Script vuln library manages and unifies the output of the vulnerability checks performed by the Nmap Scripting Engine.

This recipe will show you how to make Nmap report the vulnerability checks performed during a scan.

How to do it...

Launch the NSE scripts in the vuln category against your target:

$nmap -sV --script vuln <target>

If you are lucky, you will see a vulnerability report:

   PORT     STATE SERVICE REASON 
   306/tcp open  mysql   syn-ack 
   mysql-vuln-cve2012-2122: 
      VULNERABLE: 
      Authentication bypass in MySQL servers. 
        State: VULNERABLE 
        IDs:  CVE:CVE-2012-2122 
        Description: 
          When a user connects to MariaDB/MySQL, a token (SHA 
          over a password and a random scramble string) is calculated     
    and compared...