Re: Asset discovery and ICMP protocol

[Kevin Shaw <kevin.lee.shaw () gmail com>]

Nmap uses more than ICMP ping requests to determine the hosts on a
network http://nmap.org/book/man-host-discovery.html.  Also, you may
use your tool of choice *without* using a network discovery method;
for example scanning for NETBIOS, SMB, web, etc. or arbitrarily
portscanning every single address.  If you are just trying to conduct
an assessment; DNS records, host files, or similar means should be a
way for you to assess the entire system.  Do you have an accurate and
complete inventory?  I would only use an arbitrary scanning method
(again no pings, arp, etc.) if I am validating an inventory or looking
for rogue devices.  It can take a very long time to scan 65K+ ports
even on a half dozen IP addresses let alone an entire Class C - but
you may have to do that for rogue device detection to catch an
attempted hidden listening high number port.

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 12:51 AM, Subba Rao <kleanchap () tanucoo com> wrote:
> I have a few questions on Vulnerability assessment.
>
> How can network assets in an Enterprise network be discovered if the
> ICMP is turned off on the network?
>
> Does NMap depend on the ICMP protocol for mapping the network assets?
>
> How do the commercial vulnerability scanners discover the assets?
>
> Thank you in advance.
>
> Subba Rao
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