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SEC280 | Week 1 | Case study on Port scans & sweeps | | Jared's | 11/3/2012 |

Brief description of what they are and are they dangerous to company! |

To answer the main questions for the concerns of our network, NO. These items that have been heard about do not require immediate attention as they are considered normal. We are protected behind our firewall as well as if the employees do as asked at the end of their shift, we will have absolutely nothing to worry about. As more in likely that situation was handled when we brought the network online. Here is a brief rundown on your concerned areas:

Ping Sweeps and Port Scans are the two most common network probes that serve as important clues in sensing invasions or intrusions that can harm any type of network. Network probes are not actual intrusions, although, they could be potential causes of actual intrusions. Port scans and ping sweeps can lead to an intrusion of companies’ network system, however, with today’s technological advancements, these activities can be detected and prevented.

Ping Sweeps;
Ping sweeps are a set of ICMP Echo packets that are sent out to network of computers, actually a range of IP addresses, to see if there are any responses. As an intruder sends out the ping sweeps, he looks for responses so he can figure out which machines he can attack. “Note that there are legitimate reasons for performing ping sweeps on a network—a network administrator may be trying to find out which machines are alive on a network for diagnostic reasons. Ping sweeps are detectable using special tools as well. IPPL is an IP protocol logger that can log TCP, UDP and ICMP packets. It is similar to SCANLOGD, where it sits in the background and listens for packets. Be careful when using IPPL though—if you're on a busy Ethernet network, you might find that your IPPL log files may fill up

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