Master the Nmap Scripting Engine and the art of developing NSE scriptsAbout This BookExtend the capabilities of Nmap to perform custom tasks with the Nmap Scripting Engine Learn the fundamentals of Lua programming Develop powerful scripts for the Nmap Scripting Engine Discover all the features and libraries of the Nmap Scripting Engine In-depth coverage of the Nmap Scripting Engine API and most important libraries with examplesWho This Book Is ForIf you want to learn to write your own scripts for the Nmap Scripting Engine, this is the book for you. It is perfect for network administrators, information security professionals, and even Internet enthusiasts who are familiar with Nmap.What You Will LearnGet to grips with the fundamentals of Lua, the programming language used by the Nmap Scripting Engine Extend the capabilities of Nmap by writing your own NSE scripts Explore the Nmap Scripting Engine API Discover all the available NSE libraries Write robust brute force password auditing scripts Customize the databases distributed with Nmap Produce flexible script reports in NSE Optimize Nmap scans with script and library arguments Enhance the version detection capabilities of NmapIn DetailNmap is a well-known security tool used by penetration testers and system administrators for many different networking tasks. The Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) was introduced during Google's Summer of Code 2006 and has added the ability to perform additional tasks on target hosts, such as advanced fingerprinting and service discovery and information gathering.This book will teach you everything you need to know to master the art of developing NSE scripts. The book starts by covering the fundamental concepts of Lua programming and reviews the syntax and structure of NSE scripts. After that, it covers the most important features of NSE. It jumps right into coding practical scripts and explains how to use the Nmap API and the available NSE libraries to produce robust scripts. Finally, the book covers output formatting, string handling, network I/O, parallelism, and vulnerability exploitation.