SANS Tool Makes It Easy To Detect SNMP on Nets

Written By
Jim Rapoza
Jim Rapoza
Published: Feb 14, 2002
Updated: Feb 2, 2021
1 minute read
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Network administrators have been scrambling on the recent news about the serious security vulnerability in SNMP, but port scanners have proven ill-equipped for the task of full SNMP disclosure. eWEEK Labs has tested a free tool from the SANS Institute that makes it much easier and faster to find rogue SNMP.

SNMPing is a simple Windows-based tool that can quickly scan all systems in a network to find those running SNMP. The tool searches on port 161, the default for SNMP, but it can be configured to look at any port. To get SNMPing email snmptool@sans.org.

In less than 2 minutes, SNMPing scanned our entire class C lab network for rogue SNMP, and we were surprised by the results: SNMP was detected and enabled on a network printer, a wireless access point and a test NetWare server.

We found the tool much easier to use and more accurate than traditional port scanning tools, which usually know only if port 161 is open.

The results window in SNMPing shows systems that both have SNMP enabled and those on which it has been disabled. All results of a network scan can also be saved to a text file.

Technical Director Jim Rapoza can be reached at jim_rapoza@ziffdavis.com.

Jim Rapoza

Jim Rapoza, Chief Technology Analyst, eWEEK.For nearly fifteen years, Jim Rapoza has evaluated products and technologies in almost every technology category for eWEEK. Mr Rapoza's current technology focus is on all categories of emerging information technology though he continues to focus on core technology areas that include: content management systems, portal applications, Web publishing tools and security. Mr. Rapoza has coordinated several evaluations at enterprise organizations, including USA Today and The Prudential, to measure the capability of products and services under real-world conditions and against real-world criteria. Jim Rapoza's award-winning weekly column, Tech Directions, delves into all areas of technologies and the challenges of managing and deploying technology today.

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