Product Reviews

How Secure is Your Network? Hailstorm 1.02

Seven network scanners test your security before the crackers do.

• By Greg Saoutine
• 09/01/2001

Hailstorm 1.02 is a relatively young product, but it's already becoming famous—not so much as a scanner, but as a packet creator. It performed a fairly accurate TCP port scan (SYN) of all 65,535 ports in about 11 minutes. However, the product reported just the ports it found open.

In order to use Hailstorm to its fullest potential, you have to use its simple API. This allows you to craft your own checks by creating custom packets. Also, the software is able to interpret Perl scripts, some of which can be designed as detailed vulnerability tests. Even better, Hailstorm has a built-in sniffer and is able to replay captured sessions, giving you the ability to edit captured packets. You can capture the entire scanning session, make necessary adjustments directly to a packet's payload (or headers), and repeat the scan. In addition to port scanning, information gathering and attack simulation, Hailstorm includes a built-in protocol analyzer and other tools.