The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a protocol that manages network devices; it runs on the UDP. Every network device contains an SNMP agent that connects with an independent SNMP manager. This protocol uses two authenticating passwords: the first is a public key to view the configuration, and the second is a private key to configure the devices. Network nodes are stored in a database called the Management Information Base (MIB) in a tree structure. An attacker, for example, can enumerate SNMP services to check for default SNMP passwords or brute force them.
Nmap can be very handy in SNMP penetration testing as it is loaded with very useful .nse scripts for this mission, such as:
- snmp-info.nse
- snmp-netstat.nse ...
