Scan tools

This will help you discover any network activity by the program, it doesn't matter at which layer it is.. if it talks, you will know.

Just want to underline everything that Sahirh has said; very comprehensive as usual

Hey guys
I was also looking for a program to scan my computer. I found this program called Retina by eEye Digital Security. Unfortunatly this program is extremely expensive with the price tag of around $900. A friend of mine made a keygen for this program and we went ahead and installed it on a computer. I still haven't had the time to really study the program. But so far from what I have seen it is a pretty nice program. It will tell you what port is open and has vulnerabilities for attacks and how to fix it. Also gives you step by step procedures in going through your registry and changing settings to tighten up security.

Another program from eEye Digital Security called Iris which is a network traffic analyzer. These two programs combined can be quite helpful in locking down your system a little better. I use the word "little" just because you can't always trust a program to tighten all ends when it comes to security. If somebody made a program to protect you and keep you secure online, there most definetly is somebody out there working on getting around that protection.

I would recommend these programs to anybody that could get ahold of them. I am trying to learn more about them and get the hang of them better.

ZiPPy

Retina is a good software, but IMHO it doesn't worth paying for it.. Especially not while Nessus is arround which doesn't cost a penny and has better features and database

I agree nske, but we cracked it so it kinda worked out for me (Slaps hand for cracking software). But now I have ran into another problem, they want to update there latest ver. and you need to login on there site to do so.
Im just gonna stick with Nessus and learn that program.
What about Iris, have you ever messed with that program? What would you recommend in place for that? I believe we have a network traffic analyzer here on the site for download if Im not mistaken.

ZiPPy

I've been using Iris for over 2 years and I must give it the 'thumbs up'! It's an excellent tool and has a lot of useful features but terribly expensive.

Recently I gave Ethereal a go and even though it's not as graphical as Iris, I found it more useful while analysing packets because it's smart enough to distinguish Spanning tree packets and other type which are always present in a smart network with VLANs and other new technologies. Iris always presented these as normal Ethernet II packets, without further information, making it terribly difficult to understand what your looking at!

I'd suggest you give Ethereal a go - its free and does a great job!

Cheers,