[Introduction to Incident Handling and Response] Darwin is an attacker residing within the organization and is performing network sniffing by running…

The Nmap command nmap --script=sniffer-detect utilizes the Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) to run a specific script designed to detect network interfaces operating in promiscuous mode. This mode is necessary for a sniffer to capture all traffic on a network segment, not just packets addressed to it. The sniffer-detect script sends specially crafted network packets (e.g., ARP requests to non-existent MAC addresses) onto the local network. A system in promiscuous mode will process these packets at the kernel level, potentially causing a response or a change in its ARP cache that can be detected, thereby revealing the sniffing host.

A. This command performs a standard OS and service version detection scan on a limited number of ports; it does not test for promiscuous mode.
B. This command performs a UDP scan on port 500 (typically for IKE/IPsec), which is irrelevant to detecting a network sniffer.
D. The hostmap script is used to discover hostnames, domain names, and virtual hosts associated with a target IP address, not for detecting sniffing activity.

1. Nmap Official Documentation: The official documentation for the sniffer-detect script explicitly states its purpose: "Tries to detect if a target on a local ethernet network is sniffing traffic by sending it some specially crafted packets. A host in promiscuous mode will accept packets for other hosts and so we can send it a packet and see if it was received."

Source: Nmap.org

NSE Script: sniffer-detect

Retrieved from https://nmap.org/nsedoc/scripts/sniffer-detect.html

2. University Courseware: Network security courses often cover Nmap as a primary tool for network reconnaissance and security auditing. The use of NSE for advanced detection

including identifying sniffers

is a key topic.

Source: Baloch

R. (2013). Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Guide. CRC Press. (While a book

it's widely used as a textbook in university cybersecurity curricula). Chapter 5

"Active Reconnaissance

" discusses advanced scanning techniques with Nmap

including the use of NSE scripts like sniffer-detect for specific tasks such as identifying promiscuous mode systems.

3. Academic Publication: Research on network security tools frequently analyzes the capabilities of Nmap and its scripting engine for detecting anomalous network behavior.

Source: Lyon

G. F. (2009). Nmap Network Scanning: The Official Nmap Project Guide to Network Discovery and Security Scanning. Insecure.com LLC. Chapter 9

"Nmap Scripting Engine

" Section: "Detection Scripts

" details the functionality of scripts designed to detect services and anomalies

including sniffer-detect.