My First Network Scanning Experience

My First Network Scanning Experience

As someone who recently began exploring the world of cybersecurity, I’ve been diving into tools that ethical hackers and penetration testers use every day. One of the first tools I encountered was Nmap—a powerful, open-source network scanner.
In this blog, I’ll share my experience using Nmap for the first time, explain how it works, and walk you through a basic scan step by step. Whether you're a beginner like me or just curious about ethical hacking, this blog will help you get started!

** Tools Used

1) Kali Linux
->Nmap – Network Mapper

🔷 What is Nmap?

Nmap is a free and open-source tool used to discover hosts and services on
a network. It’s widely used in cybersecurity to identify open ports, running
services, and potential vulnerabilities.

🛠️ My First Scan with Nmap

Here’s how I used Nmap to scan a target machine in TryHackMe:

✅ Step 1: Open Terminal in Kali Linux
Just launch your Kali terminal - Nmap comes pre-installed.

✅ Step 2: Basic Command
Enter The Command - "nmap 10.10.10.10".
This command performs a basic port scan on the target machine.

✅ Step 3: Results
After running the scan, Nmap showed me:
🔸 Open ports
🔸 Services running on those ports
It looked something like this:
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
80/tcp open http
443/tcp open https

🧠 What I Learned

🔸 Nmap is incredibly simple yet powerful.
🔸 Open ports can reveal a lot about a machine's vulnerabilities.
🔸 It’s a must-know tool for any beginner in ethical hacking.
I also learned how important it is to scan responsibly—only scan systems you own or are authorized to test.

💬 Final Thoughts

Using Nmap for the first time gave me a real sense of how cybersecurity professionals think and operate. It was exciting to see how much you can discover with just one command.
I’ll be exploring more advanced Nmap features soon, like OS detection and script scanning. Stay tuned!

👉 Connect with me on LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay-kumar-b1222035a/
💬 Let me know what tool you'd like me to write about next!