New Versions of NMAP and Wireshark

If you have not already heard, new versions of NMAP and Wireshark have been released recently. These are my favorite open source programs, and to be honest, pretty much my favorite programs period. They are both maintained and managed by a dedicated team of people, and the quality of the software shows. Plus, the main authors (Gerald Combs for Wireshark, and Fyodor for NMAP) are both class acts…

NMAP is THE tool for running forensics on your network…to find the weaknesses before the bad guys do. It has MANY parts, which all work together in a very seamless manner, and should be in every network engineers tool kit. If you are not using it, stop what you are doing and get it now!! (Enough said!!) New version is 7.00.

Same thing about Wireshark. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…if you don’t have a network analyzer, then you’re not really a full and complete network engineer. Get it and learn it. There are plenty of resources on the Internet, for free, to help you get started (Google is your friend), and if you want to pay a little bit of money, Laura Chappell has a great website devoted to Wireshark training.

I just downloaded the updated Wireshark today (version 2.0.0), and I have to say the default screen is spartan, to say the least. Not sure if this is temporary in this initial v2 build, but either way, it does not look like it’s predessor. Note how clean (and empty) the startup screen is…

Initial Wireshark startup screen

Initial Wireshark startup screen

Here is some info from Gerald about this new version. I’m looking forward to learning what it has to offer!