Service and OS Fingerprinting
Use Nmap -sV and -O to identify running services and operating systems.
Why Fingerprinting Matters
Knowing the exact service version and operating system turns a list of open ports into an actionable target list. Version data maps directly to CVE numbers and exploit modules.
Service Version Detection with -sV
nmap -sV probes each open port with service-specific payloads and matches responses against its probe database (nmap-service-probes) to identify software and version.
sudo nmap -sV -p 22,80,443,3306 192.168.1.100
# 22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 7.4
# 80/tcp open http nginx 1.18.0
# 3306/tcp open mysql MySQL 5.7.38All lessons in this course
- Nmap Port Scanning Techniques
- Service and OS Fingerprinting
- Netcat: The Swiss Army Knife
- Network Enumeration Scripting