John the Ripper vs. Nmap

It is best suited in those environments where complexity is not the key. We've used it fairly extensively in our UNIX to find weak UNIX passwords and in Windows environments too. It's very easy to get hold of as it is essentially Open Source, although a paid version is now available and we are thinking of looking at this proposition in-depth to see if it is viable. We found it easy to install and deploy across our systems. Patching was fairly regular, so we always had the latest version. It holds its own against DES and Blowfish encryption algorithms among many others.

Incentivized

If you're a sysadmin, or anyone who's had to deploy network services, you've almost certainly had to use Nmap at some point or other. Need to see what devices are on your LAN? Nmap can tell you that. Want to check which ports your web server has open to the internet? Nmap is your friend.

Nmap is a powerful command-line tool and has many options that require some reading of documentation to get the best out of (although generally straightforward). If the thought of working at the command-line scares you (presumably not if you're reading this review), then you may want a much simpler tool, or at least check out Zenmap GUI.

Incentivized

• Easily finds plantect passwords.
• Simply detects passwords hashes.
• Has a fully bespoke cracker that can be modified to users requirements.
• Excellent for UNIX and Windows usage.

Incentivized

• NMap provides a very fast and a very thorough network "sweep" that allows you to quickly map out exactly what's on your network.
• NMap is highly configurable. The "canned" choices are very good in most instances, but using various switches and options, you can create a very specific scan and get exactly the results you're looking for.
• NMap is easy to use. Even a new administrator will be able to use the graphical version (Zenmap) with efficiency right away.

Incentivized

• It needs to be modified to be able to break SHA 256, 512 and the lastest hashes.
• Can be slow and wildly against the lastest hashes.
• Require admin access to set up account.
• Old and is being superseded by better applications.

Incentivized

• exporting, There's a serious lack of ability to export the information in a readable format to present to VPs and such. I always find myself doing a lot of data massaging to get it in a pretty format
• some scans can trigger sensitive IDS/IPS
• SYN scans can be particularly aggressive and cause problems on remote systems.

Incentivized

There is a very large support community and a robust selection of add-ons and scripts. Once you get the use down this is one of the most powerful tools and you can find anything you are looking for as far as examples on the web. While not having official support its not lacking by any means.

Incentivized

'John the Ripper' being open source was free to use, whereas the others had to be paid for. It was very simple to install and runs against many hundreds of hashes and crypts. It is always developing thanks to large communities on GitHub.

Incentivized

Alternatives to Nmap (other IP scanners) are often much more limited in what they can do; They often only allow you to scan a specific subset of ports or a limited number of IP addresses in one command. Nmap is unrestricted in that regard. What makes Nmap stand out above the rest, is the complete network analysis package you get with it. It allows IP scanner, network deep-dives, hardware analysis, vulnerability analysis, encryption detailing, and so much more, in one free application

Incentivized

• Helped us achieve initial Password Auditor goals and targets.
• Simple and cheap to deploy, so have saved greatly compared to paid for products.

Incentivized

• Nmap with Wireshark is free, so it's been a great combo team to gather info and test.
• It's allowed us to avoid fines from false positives and to fix actual issues ourselves.
• Great for finding hosts, helps keep the network secure.

Incentivized