13.2 7th Sphere Port Scanner

URL: www.hackers.com/html/archive.5.htm

Client OS: Windows 9x/NT/2000

Target OS: TCP/IP networks

Price: Free

Description:  7th Sphere, shown in Figure 13-3, is an excellent Windows 9x/NT/2000 tool for port scanning a range of ports on a single host. It is a fast port scanner with a nice GUI. As an added bonus 7th Sphere provides text response from the scanned port (quasi banner grabbing). This information helps you learn more about the target and the services running on it.

Figure 13-3. 7th Sphere Scan screen

Use:  7th Sphere is very useful when attempting to further probe a single host. To begin, enter the IP address or host name of the target in the Scan window. Next, specify the ports you wish to scan. We normally start by scanning ports 1–1024 since they are commonly used ports. Later you may wish to scan all 65535 ports. Keep in mind, scanning all 65535 ports will take some time and may alert IDSs. The tool also offers options for Quick Scan, Reset on halt, and Save on halt. We tend to leave these options unchecked, but check them as you need them. The last important step is specifying an output file in the Filename window. If you do not enter a new file name for each scan, you will overwrite the results of the previous scan. Once you have your settings correct, click on the start button and wait for the tool to finish its work.

Benefits:  The tool is quick and easy to use. It offers a nice GUI and runs on Windows 9x/NT. This is an excellent port scanner for performing in-depth scans on a single host.

Con:  You can scan ports only by ranges and you cannot specify multiple target hosts. For scanning select ports on a number of different hosts, use a different scanner such as Nmap or SuperScan.