Port Scan

An attacker can perform a port scan to determine whether ports are open and vulnerable to an attack. This is most commonly done by attempting to access a port and waiting for a response. The response indicates whether or not the port is open.

This category includes the following types of port scans:

Host Port Scan. The attacker scans a specific host's ports to determine which of the ports are open.
Sweep Scan. The attacker scans various hosts to determine where a specific port is open.

You can configure how the Safe@Office appliance should react when a port scan is detected.

Port Scan Fields

In this field…	Do this…
Number of ports accessed	SmartDefense detects ports scans by measuring the number of ports accessed over a period of time. The number of ports accessed must exceed the Number of ports accessed value, within the number of seconds specified by the In a period of [seconds] value, in order for SmartDefense to consider the activity a scan. Type the minimum number of ports that must be accessed within the In a period of [seconds] period, in order for SmartDefense to detect the activity as a port scan. For example, if this value is 30, and 40 ports are accessed within a specified period of time, SmartDefense will detect the activity as a port scan. For Host Port Scan, the default value is 30. For Sweep Scan, the default value is 50.
In a period of [seconds]	SmartDefense detects ports scans by measuring the number of ports accessed over a period of time. The number of ports accessed must exceed the Number of ports accessed value, within the number of seconds specified by the In a period of [seconds] value, in order for SmartDefense to consider the activity a scan. Type the maximum number of seconds that can elapse, during which the Number of ports accessed threshold is exceeded, in order for SmartDefense to detect the activity as a port scan. For example, if this value is 20, and the Number of ports accessed threshold is exceeded for 15 seconds, SmartDefense will detect the activity as a port scan. If the threshold is exceeded for 30 seconds, SmartDefense will not detect the activity as a port scan. The default value is 20 seconds.
Track	Specify whether to issue logs for scans, by selecting one of the following: Log. Issue logs. This is the default. None. Do not issue logs. This is the default.
Detect scans from Internet only	Specify whether to detect only scans originating from the Internet, by selecting one of the following: False. Do not detect only scans from the Internet. This is the default. True. Detect only scans from the Internet.