Port Scanner
Scan common ports on a host — see which services are open.
How to use Port Scanner
- Enter a host you own or are authorized to test — never someone else's without permission.
- Review the open ports — each maps to a running, internet-exposed service.
- Flag what shouldn't be public: databases (3306/5432), admin panels, dev servers.
- Remediate and re-scan: firewall, restrict binding to localhost, or close — then confirm.
What is Port Scanner?
A port scanner checks which network ports on a host are open — accepting connections — revealing the services running there: port 80/443 (web), 22 (SSH), 25/587 (mail), 3306 (MySQL), and so on. Open ports are doors; the scan inventories which are unlocked.
The responsible-use framing is non-negotiable: port scanning is a legitimate, essential security-audit technique on your OWN systems (and authorized ones) — and unauthorized scanning of others' hosts is at best rude and in many jurisdictions illegal. Scan what you own or have written permission to test. Full stop.
About the Port Scanner
Enter a host you own or are authorized to test, and see which common ports respond as open.
The legitimate audit uses: your own attack-surface check — the core one: every open port is a service exposed to the internet, and the goal is that ONLY the ports you intend (443 for web, maybe 22 for SSH) are open, with databases (3306, 5432), admin panels and dev services firewalled off; firewall verification — confirming your rules actually closed what you meant to close (the gap between "configured" and "effective" is where breaches live); finding forgotten services — that old service listening on an odd port nobody remembers starting; and post-hardening confirmation — re-scanning to prove a lockdown worked.
Reading results: an open database or admin port facing the public internet is a serious finding — such services should bind to localhost or sit behind a VPN/firewall, never open to the world. This is discovery, not exploitation; findings feed remediation (close the port, firewall it, restrict the binding), not intrusion. Pair with HTTP Headers and SSL checks for the services that should be open.