Introduction
I built a Python-based Network Service Enumeration Tool to practice network reconnaissance, TCP port scanning, service identification, and basic security assessment.
The tool was developed and tested in a Kali Linux environment using Python socket programming and multithreading.
Project Overview
The main goal of this project was to understand how network services can be discovered by scanning TCP ports and identifying services running on open ports.
The tool performs a focused scan of commonly used ports and provides useful information about discovered services.
Key Features
• Scan TCP ports
• Identify open ports
• Map ports to common services
• Perform banner grabbing
• Use multithreading for faster scanning
• Display scan results
• Save results to a text report
• Accept a target through the command line
Technologies Used
• Python
• Socket Programming
• Threading
• Kali Linux
• Linux Networking
• Git
• GitHub
How It Works
The basic workflow is:
Target Host
↓
TCP Port Scanner
↓
Check Port Availability
↓
Identify Service
↓
Banner Grabbing
↓
Display Results
↓
Save Report
The tool uses Python's socket library to establish TCP connections and determine whether specific ports are accessible.
Port Scanning
The scanner checks a predefined list of commonly used TCP ports, including:
• 21 — FTP
• 22 — SSH
• 23 — Telnet
• 25 — SMTP
• 53 — DNS
• 80 — HTTP
• 110 — POP3
• 139 — NetBIOS
• 143 — IMAP
• 443 — HTTPS
• 445 — SMB
• 3389 — RDP
• 8000 — HTTP-Alt
The project focuses on controlled scanning of systems where authorization has been provided.
Multithreading
To improve scanning speed, the tool uses Python threading.
Instead of checking every port sequentially, multiple port checks can be performed concurrently.
This helped me understand how threading can be applied to network security tools.
Banner Grabbing
When an open service is discovered, the tool attempts to retrieve service information through banner grabbing.
For example, during testing the tool identified:
Port: 8000
Service: HTTP-Alt
Banner: HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Server: SimpleHTTP/0.6 Python/3.13.12
Banner information can help identify the type of service and, when available, the software or server version.
Example Scan
The tool can be executed with:
python3 scanner.py -t 127.0.0.1
Example result:
Target: 127.0.0.1
Scanned Ports: 14
Open Ports: 1
Port: 8000
Service: HTTP-Alt
Banner: HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Server: SimpleHTTP/0.6 Python/3.13.12
The results are also saved to:
results.txt
Security Use Case
Service enumeration is an important part of network security assessment.
Identifying open ports and exposed services can help security teams understand the attack surface of a system.
For example, unnecessary services or legacy protocols can be identified for further security review.
This tool is designed for educational purposes and authorized security testing only.
What I Learned
Through this project, I gained practical experience in:
• TCP port scanning
• Socket programming
• Network service enumeration
• Banner grabbing
• Python threading
• Command-line interfaces
• Linux networking
• Kali Linux
• Basic security assessment
• Security automation
Future Improvements
Possible future improvements include:
• UDP scanning
• More advanced service detection
• Operating system detection
• Configurable port ranges
• JSON report generation
• HTML reporting
• Risk-based service classification
• Better timeout handling
• Network scan history
• Integration with vulnerability assessment tools
GitHub Repository
The complete source code is available in my GitHub portfolio:
https://github.com/Saif2246/CyberSecurity-Portfolio
Conclusion
This project helped me strengthen my understanding of network reconnaissance and Python-based security automation.
It also gave me practical experience with sockets, TCP connections, threading, service enumeration, and banner grabbing.
This is the second project in my practical Cloud Security and GRC learning portfolio.
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