Mathematical optimization and its applications

Mathematical optimization is a fascinating field with a wide range of real-world applications. It’s all about finding the best solution under constraints—maximizing profit, minimizing cost, or optimizing efficiency. Let’s dive into some key areas where it shines.

In logistics and supply chain management, optimization is a game-changer. Companies like Amazon or FedEx use it to determine the most efficient delivery routes, minimizing fuel costs and delivery times. This often involves solving problems like the Traveling Salesman Problem or vehicle routing problems, where algorithms (think linear programming or heuristics) figure out the shortest path through a network of locations.

Then there’s finance—portfolio optimization is a classic example. Investors use models like the Markowitz mean-variance optimization to balance risk and return, allocating assets to maximize profit for a given level of risk. It’s a constrained problem: you’ve got a budget, market conditions, and risk tolerance to juggle.

In manufacturing, optimization helps with production scheduling and resource allocation. For instance, a factory might use integer programming to decide how many units of each product to make, given limited machine time and raw materials, to maximize output or minimize waste.

Energy systems lean heavily on it, too. Power grid operators optimize electricity distribution to match supply with demand, often in real-time. This can involve complex nonlinear optimization for renewable energy variability or transmission losses.

Optimization plays a role even in healthcare—think of hospital resource management. Scheduling staff, allocating beds, or optimizing radiation therapy plans for cancer treatment all rely on mathematical models to improve outcomes while keeping costs in check.

The tools behind this are pretty diverse: linear programming, nonlinear programming, dynamic programming, and metaheuristics like genetic algorithms or simulated annealing. Machine learning is creeping in, too, especially for problems with messy, real-world data.

Mathematical optimization has found widespread applications in various real-world domains, including industry, agriculture, commerce, and scientific research (Zou, 2025). It plays a crucial role in operations research, offering powerful tools for complex decision-making problems in logistics, finance, and manufacturing. Specific applications include project portfolio optimization and customer relationship management, utilizing methods such as tabu search, scatter search, and mixed integer programming (April et al., 2001). Optimization techniques have been successfully applied to solve industrial problems in engineering, inventory, logistics, marketing, scheduling, resource planning, and transportation (Ali et al., 2015). While these methods improve production efficiency and resource allocation, challenges such as computational complexity and scalability issues persist. The future of mathematical optimization lies in enhancing algorithm speed, usability, and accuracy to address global challenges more effectively (Zou, 2025).

Table 1: Applications of Mathematical Optimization in Various Fields

Field	Key Applications	Citation
Logistics	Route optimization, inventory management, and cost reduction	(Rashed et al., 2024) (Mandal, 2023)
Finance	Portfolio optimization, risk management, and asset allocation	(Zou, 2025)
Energy Management	Renewable energy integration, smart grid optimization, and power metering	(Ullah et al., 2024) (Gui et al., 2024)
Engineering Design	Structural optimization, material cost reduction, and product performance improvement	(Sharma & Jabeen, 2023)
Urban Planning	Smart city operation, transportation optimization, and distributed energy resources	(Shokri et al., 2024)
Environmental Sustainability	Sustainable infrastructure design and river fishway optimization	(Vázquez‐Méndez et al., 2024)

References:

Ali, M. Montaz, Adewumi, Aderemi O., Blamah, Nachamada, Falowo, Olabisi, Mathematical Modeling and Optimization of Industrial Problems, Journal of Applied Mathematics, 2015, 438471, 3 pages, 2015. DOI: 10.1155/2015/438471

April, J., Glover, F.W., Kelly, J.P., & Laguna, M. (2001). Simulation/optimization using "real-world" applications. Proceeding of the 2001 Winter Simulation Conference (Cat. No.01CH37304), 1, 134-138 vol.1. DOI:10.1109/WSC.2001.977254

Fu, G. S., Yin, X., & Xu, Y. L. (2024, July). Renewable energy integration and distributed energy optimization in smart grid. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 2795, No. 1, p. 012004). IOP Publishing.

Mandal, P. K. (2023). A review of classical methods and Nature-Inspired Algorithms (NIAs) for optimization problems. Results in Control and Optimization, 13, 100315.

Rashed, N. A., Ali, Y. H., Rashid, T. A., & Salih, A. (2024). Unraveling the versatility and impact of multi-objective optimization: algorithms, applications, and trends for solving complex real-world problems. arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.08754.

Sharma, D., & Jabeen, S. D. (2023, October). Hybridizing interval method with a heuristic for solving real-world constrained engineering optimization problems. In Structures (Vol. 56, p. 104993). Elsevier.

Shokri, M., Niknam, T., Sarvarizade-Kouhpaye, M., Pourbehzadi, M., Javidi, G., Sheybani, E., & Dehghani, M. (2024). A Novel Optimal Planning and Operation of Smart Cities by Simultaneously Considering Electric Vehicles, Photovoltaics, Heat Pumps, and Batteries. Processes, 12(9), 1816.

Ullah, K., Alghamdi, H., Hafeez, G., Khan, I., Ullah, S., & Murawwat, S. (2024, July). A Swarm Intelligence-Based Approach for Multi-Objective Optimization Considering Renewable Energy in Smart Grid. In 2024 International Conference on Electrical, Computer and Energy Technologies (ICECET (pp. 1-7). IEEE.

Vázquez-Méndez, M. E., Alvarez-Vázquez, L. J., García-Chan, N., Martínez, A., & Rodríguez, C. (2024). Mathematics for optimal design of sustainable infrastructures. Euro-Mediterranean Journal for Environmental Integration, 9(2), 989-996.

Zou, Y. (2025). Advancing Mathematical Optimization Methods: Applications, Challenges, and Future Directions. Theoretical and Natural Science. DOI:10.54254/2753-8818/2025.20116

Generative Aritificial Intelligence and ChatGPT

Introduction: Artificial neural networks (ANN), which have been first proposed inside the 1940s came into prominence whilst the Deep-Learning (DL)fashions based on ANN started out accomplishing superhuman consequences on all types of obligations, from beating global-champion board recreation players to outperforming doctors at diagnosing breast cancer. Essentially, ANN works on processing statistics the use of layers of interconnected nodes, or neurons, that mimic the human brain. DL models are frequently composed of thousands and thousands or billions of interconnected nodes in many layers which might be skilled to perform detection or type obligations using considerable quantities of facts. Because the fashions are so extraordinarily complicated, even the researchers who layout them do no longer absolutely recognize how they work, and subsequently the call “Black Box” fashions.

GAI Systems: Generative Artificial Intelligence (additionally GenAI or GAI) is a kind of Artificial Intelligence (AI) device able to producing text, pictures, or other media in reaction to activates. Unlike other AI structures which can be designed ordinarily for classifying or predicating, GAI models research the styles and shape of the inputs, after which generate new content material based at the schooling records. Many main technological establishments were working on Generative Pre-educated Transformers (GPT) which use huge datasets of unlabelled texts to generate novel human-like textual content.

Some of the outstanding GAI systems encompass GPT-three, GPT-4, ChatGPT, LaMDA, Bard, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DALL-E. GPT-4 launched in March 2023 claims to be capable of fixing tough problems with tremendous accuracy, thanks to its extensive general information and trouble-fixing capabilities. It can generate, edit, and iterate with users on creative and technical writing tasks, inclusive of composing songs, writing screenplays and technical articles, or learning a person’s writing fashion.  

The GAI systems have located programs in lots of fields, such as in creative fields which includes art, music, and writing, as well as in fields together with healthcare, finance, and gaming. Some exciting applications consist of how Iceland is the use of GPT-4 to preserve its language, and the way Khan Academy is the usage of it as a digital show for college students and a classroom assistant for teachers. However, there has been a first-rate amount of discussion of the usage of GAI in education about its content-producing capability.

GPT: ChatGPT has been catching headlines ever because it turned into made public in November 2022. It acquired a million users in just 5 days and reached one hundred million customers in two months after launch, placing the record for the quickest-growing customer application. In evaluation, TikTok took about 9 months while Instagram took around  and a half of years to achieve a hundred million users. The launch of GPT fast sparked a brand new AI hands race in the tech enterprise to broaden and install equipment that may generate compelling written work and snap shots in reaction to consumer prompts. Two weeks after the public launch of OpenAI’s GPT-4 in March 2023, an open letter was despatched out urging the arena’s main AI labs to ’pause the schooling of recent first rate-effective systems for six months’. The letter signed with the aid of hundreds of the biggest names in tech, along with Elon Musk talks about “profound risks to society and humanity” presented by using latest advances in AI. In May 2023, Sam Altman, CEO of  OpenAI testified before the United States Congress on the risks that AI may also pose to society, describing the era’s contemporary growth as a capacity “printing press second” but one that required safeguards. Interestingly, in the same week, OpenAI  introduced the release of a unfastened ChatGPT app for iOS customers inside the United States. (see https://www.Youtube.Com/watch?V=G0ZBS6o5LSQ ).  The new ChatGPT app has the same abilties because the internet version of the viral chatbot device, and will help build on its recognition. With the app, users can also be capable of ship voice prompts thru their cellphone’s microphone, as opposed to simply typing them. Users also can sync their records across devices. It has also been announced that there are plans to roll out the app to international locations outside america soon.

GAI for education: GAI fashions can be beneficial equipment for changing the conventional getting to know system by allowing educationalists to rethink and remodel education.

Teachers can use it as a treasured device to teach students successfully and engagingly. They can use it for content material creation consisting of ideating lesson plans, projects, and actives in alignment with gaining knowledge of goals and curricular standards.  Teachers should leverage the AI’s natural language knowledge talents to help in comparing and improving the satisfactory of written work and in grading the students.

Students can take assist from GAI systems for obtaining causes about standards they locate tough to recognize. GAI can also assist them in hassle fixing, idea reinforcement, and enhancing writing and presentation competencies. Students involved in studies can use   it for subject matter selection, identifying assets, organising studies method, or even in quotation help. Students requiring language-assistance can look to GAI for translations, grammar motives, vocabulary exercise, and communique simulations.

Overall, GAI equipment like ChatGPT can technique and generate records fast, that can keep time and boom efficiency for each instructors and college students, supporting them to pay attention extra at the actual teaching-studying method. Unlike human resources, those structures may be conveniently to be had making it easier for college kids and instructors to get right of entry to help whilst wished, regardless of time or area. Most importantly, ChatGPT can assist cast off the prevailing ‘One length, healthy all’ version of training and tailor it for the scholars primarily based on their individual needs, hobbies, and ability ranges.

However, the usage of those gear are not with out challenges.  ChatGPT can also every so often provide misguided or incomplete data, which could result in misunderstandings or confusion for college students and teachers. Since the efficacy of these structures depend heavily on schooling, any bias in the schooling statistics may also bring about biased or unrepresentative content era that might impact coaching and learning negatively. It is likewise perceived that the convenience and velocity of ChatGPT might cause an over-reliance on those structures by means of the scholars and the school. These may additionally cause decreasing crucial questioning, hassle-solving, and creativity, which can be the center concepts of the instructional system.

Cloud computing and its futures prospects

 Cloud computing refers back to the shipping of computing offerings over the net. It permits users to get right of entry to and make use of quite a few assets, which include digital machines, storage, databases, software program packages, and networks, with out the need for on-premises infrastructure or neighborhood hardware. Cloud computing is based totally on the principle of shared sources, in which a couple of customers can percentage and get admission to the identical pool of computing assets.

Applications of Cloud Computing:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Provides virtualized computing resources, which include digital machines, garage, and networks. Users have control over the working systems and applications strolling at the infrastructure.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): Offers a platform and surroundings for developers to construct, install, and manipulate packages. PaaS companies manage the underlying infrastructure, working structures, and middleware, allowing developers to cognizance on coding.

Software as a Service (SaaS): Provides software applications over the internet, putting off the want for installation and preservation on man or woman gadgets. Users can get entry to programs immediately through an internet browser.

Data Storage and Backup: Cloud garage services offer scalable and reliable garage solutions for corporations and people. Data may be accessed and sponsored up from anywhere, making sure statistics sturdiness and availability.

Big Data Analytics: Cloud computing enables organizations to procedure and examine massive volumes of records effectively. It gives the computational energy and storage required for jogging complicated analytics algorithms on large datasets.

Internet of Things (IoT): Cloud platforms can join and control IoT gadgets, gather and examine sensor statistics, and enable remote manage and monitoring of IoT deployments.

Future Prospects of Cloud Computing:

Expansion of Cloud Services: Cloud computing is possibly to continue growing, with an increasing number of offerings being supplied. As era advances, we are able to assume new and specialised cloud services tailor-made to unique industries or use cases.

Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments: Organizations may additionally adopt hybrid cloud tactics, combining public and private clouds, to take gain of the scalability and value-effectiveness of public clouds whilst maintaining manipulate over sensitive data in private environments. Multi-cloud strategies, leveraging a couple of cloud companies, can even emerge as extra widely wide-spread to mitigate dealer lock-in and decorate resilience.

Edge Computing Integration: With the proliferation of IoT devices and the want for actual-time processing, aspect computing will integrate with cloud computing. By bringing computation and storage closer to the edge devices, it reduces latency, conserves bandwidth, and permits faster response instances for important packages.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Cloud computing provides the necessary infrastructure for education and deploying AI and device gaining knowledge of models. As AI keeps to enhance, cloud systems will provide more specialised services, along with pre-trained fashions and automated device mastering tools.

Security and Privacy Enhancements: Cloud vendors will maintain to spend money on robust safety features to protect information and make certain privateness. Advancements in encryption strategies, identity control, and information access controls will enhance the safety posture of cloud services.

Quantum Computing within the Cloud: As quantum computing technology progresses, cloud vendors may provide access to quantum computing sources, enabling builders and researchers to test with quantum algorithms and solve complicated troubles greater effectively.

Overall, cloud computing offers awesome capacity for innovation, scalability, fee performance, and accessibility. It will in all likelihood play a important role in remodeling industries, enabling virtual transformation, and riding the adoption of emerging technologies inside the future.

Working of AI chatbot

AI chatbots use a combination of natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and programming to simulate human-like conversations with users. Here's a general overview of how an AI chatbot works:

Input: The chatbot receives input from the user in the form of text or voice.

NLP: The chatbot uses NLP to understand the user's intent and extract relevant information from the input. NLP involves breaking down the user's input into smaller components like words and phrases, and analyzing their meanings.

ML: The chatbot uses ML algorithms to learn from past conversations and improve its responses. ML involves training the chatbot on large datasets of text conversations so that it can identify patterns and improve its accuracy over time.

Response: The chatbot uses the information it has gathered from the input and its knowledge base to generate a response that it thinks will best answer the user's query.

Output: The chatbot sends the response back to the user in the form of text or voice.

Feedback: If the user interacts with the chatbot further, the chatbot uses this feedback to improve its future responses.

AI chatbots can be trained to handle a wide range of tasks, from answering basic customer service questions to providing personalized recommendations and even engaging in small talk. The more sophisticated the chatbot, the more complex the algorithms and models that are used to power it.

Example:

ChatGPT is a language model trained by OpenAI, based on the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture. It is designed to simulate human-like conversations and generate natural language responses to user inputs.

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) model that has been pre-trained on large amounts of text data from various sources such as books, articles, and websites. This pre-training allows ChatGPT to generate coherent and contextually appropriate responses to a wide range of prompts, from simple questions to more complex conversations.

Users can interact with ChatGPT through a chat interface, providing prompts and questions that the model uses to

Post-COVID World

The way we study, work, and live has altered because of COVID-19. While some changes are transient, others are permanent. The world after the epidemic will not be exactly like the world before. Thus, there are several discussions about the perspective of the post-COVID world and what should be the challenges around the world.

The world after the COVID-19 disease:

During the time of COVID, a weak medical and healthcare system led to the death of many people. As a result, every country has recognized the value of having a robust healthcare system and is working to implement one. Many nations were impacted as the world's supply systems were disrupted. As a result, numerous nations began making efforts to become self-sufficient. Globalism is being increasingly dominated by nationalism. Until everyone is immunized and eradicated, COVID may become intermittent and be cured like the common flu. If a new virus is found, everyone will be on high alert. Worldwide action will be taken right away to stop upcoming pandemics. Checks for viruses at airports will become standard, and a covid vaccination passport may also be required.

Jobs that can be done from home will increase. Additionally, employees will expect rigorous timing to create a work-life balance. Most jobs that can be done from home currently require availability around the clock. Employees are being worn out as a result. As a result, new laws may be implemented to attain work-life balance. Everyone is now aware of the necessity of an emergency fund. Many people will begin saving money and setting up emergency finance in preparation for the near future turbulence. The value of life and the people we love will increase. Many people will meet up with friends and family regularly because of the times when pandemics prevented us from seeing our loved ones.

The post-COVID world should look like this:

The covid epidemic had a significantly more significant impact on the weaker individuals than on the general population. The majority of those who lost their jobs were unskilled laborers. And because they lacked access to digital gadgets, poor people's kids could not finish their education. Therefore, nations should seek to lessen inequality and close the gap. Protecting those who are vulnerable requires action.

People realized during the lockdown that humans could positively impact the environment. Therefore, promoting sustainable growth can significantly improve living conditions in the post-covid era. It is imperative to increase the number of green jobs.

Because of the more significant population density in metropolitan areas, they became covid hotspots. Better employment options should be available in rural areas in the post-covid era so that we may accomplish the geographic distribution of development.

Summary:

The Covid epidemic brought about some lasting effects. We also need to make additional adjustments, like safeguarding the weak by fostering a more inclusive and equal society. In particular, threat perception, social context, scientific correspondence, personal and group interests adjustment, initiative, stress management, and coping with the post-pandemic COVID-19 situations. Actions that behavioral and sociological theories could support are expected to restrain COVID-19's potentially eradicating influences.

Network Reconnaissance

Open Port / Service Identification:

In cybersecurity, the term open port refers to a TCP or UDP port number configured to accept packets. In contrast, a port that denies a connection or ignores all packets is a closed port. Port is an integral part of the Internet communication model. All communication over the Internet is exchanged over the port. Each IP address contains two types of ports, a UDP port, and a TCP port, with a specific IP address having up to 65,535 ports each. Internet-dependent services (web browsers, websites, file transfer services, etc.) depend on specific ports to send and receive information. Developers use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or SSH to run encrypted tunnels between computers and exchange information between hosts.

Once a service runs on a particular port, you cannot run other services on that port. For example, if you start Apache after starting Nginx on port 80, the operation will fail because the port is already in use. Open ports can be compromised if the vulnerability exploits legitimate services or malware or social engineering introduces malicious services into the system. Cybercriminals can use these services with open ports to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data. Closing unused ports reduce the number of attack vectors exposed to your organization and reduce your security risk.

Service identification and system identification:

Service identification and system identification are the third and fourth modules listed in the Information Technology Security Testing section of OSSTMM, respectively. The purpose of these two sections is to list the services running on the TCP or UDP ports that responded in the previous module and identify the target's underlying operating system.

Banner/ version check:

The SMTP banner issued by the mail server did not include the resolved hostname in the server's IP address. The email server responds to connections on port 25 with a text string called an SMTP banner. This string aims to inform the server and the administrator of the information they want to convey to the world. It's good to include the server's name in the SMTP banner to know who the person connecting to using the IP address is talking to. This warning is displayed if the name you provide is not in the same domain as the hostname you get when performing a PTR lookup of the IP address.

For some time, many servers "masked" SMTP banners by replacing letters with asterisks for people outside the network. The logic behind this was often that they didn't want to send information over the network to outsiders for fear of providing them with information that would help them attack the server. The benefits are minimal, and many servers perform banner scans as part of anti-spam, which has a negative cost. If the banner is masked, the tool will display a warning.

Some incoming mail servers may use mismatched or masked banners to indicate potential spam sources in your rating system, but in most cases, it is the only thing that rejects incoming mail. There is no. If you do not have a PTR record, or if the record does not match your hostname, we recommend that you contact your ISP and ask them to set up a reverse (PTR) record that matches your mail server's hostname.

Traffic probe:

In telecommunications, a probe is typically an action or object used to learn the state of a network. For example, send an empty message to see if the target exists. Ping is a standard utility for sending such probes. A probe is a program or other device inserted into a critical point on your network to monitor or collect data about network activity. From the perspective of computer security on the network, probes are attempts to access a computer and its files through known or possible vulnerabilities in the computer system.

Understanding Port and Services tools:

Datapipe - Datapipe has established partnerships with technology companies. Datapipe provides application management, hosting, professional, and security services for medium to large enterprises.

Fpipe - FPipe natively implements port redirection technology on Windows. It also supports User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which Datapipe does not have. FPipe does not require support DLLs or privileged user access. However, it only runs on NT, 2000, and XP platforms.

WinRelay - WinRelay is another Windows-based port redirection tool. It and FPipe share the same functionality, including the ability to define static source ports for redirected traffic. Therefore, it can be used compatible with FPipe on any Windows platform.

Network Reconnaissance:

Network reconnaissance is a term used to test for potential vulnerabilities in computer networks. This may be a legitimate activity by the network owner/operator trying to protect it or apply its terms of use. It can also be a precursor to external attacks on your network.

Nmap - Nmap is a network scanner developed by Gordon Lyon. Nmap is used to discover hosts and services on your computer network by sending packets and analyzing the response. Nmap provides many features for inspecting your computer networks, such as host discovery and service and operating system discovery.

THC-Amap - Amap is an excellent tool for determining which applications listen on a particular port. Their database isn't as extensive as Nmap uses for version detection, but it's worth it if you get a second opinion or Nmap isn't discovering the service. Amap also knows how to parse the Nmap output file. This is another valuable tool from the great people of THC.

Network Sniffers and Injection tools:

A network sniffer is a tool for monitoring the flow of data packets on your computer network. They are also known as packet sniffing, network analyzer, packet analyzer, gossip, or network probe. Network sniffing can also be performed on a hardware device or another software program. It is primarily used to evaluate network traffic and data packets.

· TCPdump - tcpdump is a computer program for data network packet analysis that runs on the command-line interface. This allows users to view TCP / IP and other packets sent and received over the computer's network. tcpdump is distributed under the BSD license and is free software.

· Windump - WinDump is the Windows version of tcpdump, a command-line network analyzer for UNIX. WinDump is fully compatible with tcpdump and can be used to monitor, diagnose, and dump network traffic to disk according to various complex rules. It can be run on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista. WinDump captures using the WinPcap library and drivers that you can download for free from the WinPcap.org website. WinDump supports 802.11b / g wireless capture and troubleshooting via the Riverbed AirPcap adapter. WinDump is free and released under the BSD-style license.

· Wireshark - Wireshark is a free open-source packet analyzer. It is used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communication protocol development, and training. Originally called Ethereal, the project was renamed Wireshark in May 2006 due to brand issues.

· Ettercap - Ettercap is a free open source network security tool for man-in-the-middle attacks on your LAN. It can be used for computer network log analysis and security audits. It works on various Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, Solaris, and Microsoft Windows.

· Hping - Hping is an open-supply packet generator and analyzer for the TCP/IP protocol created with the aid of using Salvatore Sanfilippo (additionally called Antirez). It is one of the not unusual place gear used for safety auditing and checking out of firewalls and networks, and become used to take advantage of the idle test scanning technique (additionally invented with the aid of using the hping author), and now carried out with inside the Nmap Security Scanner. The new edition of hping, hping3, is scriptable using the Tcl language and implements an engine for a string-based, human-readable description of TCP/IP packets so that the programmer can write scripts associated with low stage TCP/IP packet manipulation and evaluation in a brief time.

· Kismet - Kismet is a community detector, packet sniffer, and intrusion detection gadget for 802.11 Wi-Fi LANs. Kismet will paintings with any Wi-Fi card, which helps uncooked tracking mode, and may sniff 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n traffic. The application runs below Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Mac OS X. The customer can also run on Microsoft Windows, although, other than outside drones (see below), the simplest one supported Wi-Fi hardware to be had as packet supply. Distributed below the GNU General Public License, Kismet has unfastened software.

Injection Tools:

This is a list of the best and most popular SQL injection tools:

· SQLMap - Automatic SQL Injection And Database Takeover Tool

· jSQL Injection - Java Tool for Automatic SQL Database Injection

· BBQSQL - A Blind SQL Injection Exploitation Tool

· NoSQLMap - Automated NoSQL Database Pwnage

· Whitewidow - SQL Vulnerability Scanner

· DSSS - Damn Small SQLi Scanner

· explo - Human and Machine Readable Web Vulnerability Testing Format

· Blind-Sql-Bitshifting - Blind SQL Injection via Bitshifting

· Leviathan - Wide Range Mass Audit Toolkit

· Blisqy - Exploit Time-based blind-SQL injection in HTTP-Headers(MySQL/MariaDB)

Vulnerability scanning

What is a vulnerability scan?

A vulnerability scan assesses the vulnerabilities of computers, internal and external networks, and communication devices that cybercriminals can exploit. This automated activity scans infrastructure targets such as IP addresses for known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. The outcome Vulnerability Assessment Report helps you quickly identify security vulnerabilities that need to be repaired.

What is the vulnerability scan used for?

Vulnerability testing is an essential part of mitigating an organization's security risks. Using a vulnerability scanner to identify system vulnerabilities can reduce the attack surface that criminals can exploit and focus your security measures on the most likely target areas. The vulnerability Scan also helps to periodically scan the IP address range to determine if unauthorized services are exposed or if redundant IP addresses are being used.

How does the vulnerability test work?

There are two main types of vulnerability scans.

Unauthenticated scans detect security perimeter vulnerabilities. Authenticated scans use privileged credentials to further find security vulnerabilities in the internal network. Regardless of which type you choose, the vulnerability scanning tool uses a database of known vulnerabilities, bugs, anomalies, configuration errors, and potential routes to corporate networks that an attacker could exploit. These databases are continuously updated.

Why is vulnerability scanning necessary?

Vulnerabilities are common to organizations of all sizes. New ones are constantly being discovered or may be introduced due to system changes. Criminal hackers use automated tools to identify and exploit known vulnerabilities to access unsecured systems, networks, or data. It's easy to exploit the vulnerability with automated tools. Attacks are cheap, easy to carry out, and indiscriminate, putting all organizations connected to the Internet at risk. An attacker needs only one vulnerability to access the network. This is why it is essential to patch to address these vulnerabilities. Suppose you do not update your software, firmware, and operating system to the latest version immediately after release. In that case, your system's vulnerabilities will continue to be exploited, and your business will remain vulnerable. Worse, most intruders aren't found until it's too late.

What does the Vulnerability Scan test?

The automated vulnerability scanning tool scans open ports for standard services running on those ports. Identify configuration issues and other vulnerabilities in these services and ensure that you follow best practices: Use TLSv1.2 or later and strong encryption. Next, a vulnerability scan report is generated to highlight the identified item.

Who will perform the vulnerability scan?

IT departments typically perform vulnerability scans if they have the expertise and software. Alternatively, you may want to use an external security service provider such as IT Governance. IT governance scans are performed against targets for which the client has the required permissions for the scan, and users of the service must ensure that they have these permissions. The vulnerability scan is also performed by an attacker who scans the Internet to find entry points to the system or network.

Vulnerability Probe:

Vulnerability probes use scanning technology to scan your organization's network for signs of potential breach risk. However, not all probes are created the same. Doing so can expose your business to cyber risks. There are three ways to conduct vulnerability investigations that continuously discover hidden cyber risks.

1. Show your network like a hacker.

2. Use vulnerability assessment tools that highlight the most imminent risks.

3. Use a continuous vulnerability probe.

Vulnerability examples:

When your pc is attached to an unsecured community, your software program protection may be compromised without positive protocols in place. Forgetting updates, weak product points, and unresolved developer troubles leave your customers extensive open to pc protection vulnerabilities. Here is a listing of numerous vulnerabilities that compromise the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of your customers` products.

Critical mistakes to your customers` pc software program can depart statistics with inside the entire community liable to some malicious threats, including:

· Malware

· Phishing

· Proxies

· Spyware

· Adware

· Botnets

· Spam

Cyber attackers, hackers, and malware can take over your customers` software program, disable it and thieve statistics.

The most common software vulnerabilities are:

· Lack of data encryption

· OS command injection

· SQL injection

· Buffer overflow

· No authentication for important features

· Lack of permission

· Unlimited uploads of dangerous file types

· Rely on untrusted input when making security decisions

· Cross-site scripting and counterfeiting

· Download the code without consistency check

· Use of broken algorithms

· URL redirect to an untrusted website

· Path crossing

· error

· Weak password

· Software that is already infected with a virus

The list grows longer each year as new ways of stealing and corrupting data are discovered.

How to prevent computer vulnerabilities?

· Stay on top of bandwidth usage by sending alerts when your device crosses thresholds.

· Block users from accessing suspicious, confirmed, and insecure websites.

· Set unlock and blocklists to override category-based filters.

· Apply web bandwidth check.

· Filter web activity by tags, categories, and URLs to reveal trends, spikes, and irregularities.

· Conclude with a detailed reporting tool that can analyze browsing activity and demonstrate the effectiveness of web security.

· Identify the risk with iScan online software, show where it is, and rate the risk in dollars

OpenVAS (Open Vulnerability Assessment Scanner):

OpenVAS is a full-featured vulnerability scanner. Its features are powerful for implementing uncertified and certified tests, various high and low-level internet and industry protocols, significant scan performance optimization, and vulnerability testing. Scanners have a long history and get vulnerability detection tests from updated feeds. OpenVAS has been developed and promoted by Greenbone Networks since 2006. As part of the Greenbone Enterprise Appliance, a family of commercial vulnerability management products, scanners, and other open-source modules, form Greenbone Vulnerability Management.

Metasploit:

Metasploit is the world's leading open-source intrusion framework used by security engineers as a development platform for building penetration testing systems and security tools and exploits. This framework makes it easy for both attackers and defenders to hack. Metasploit's various tools, libraries, user interfaces, and modules allow users to configure exploit modules, connect to payloads, point to targets, and launch on target systems. Metasploit's extensive database contains hundreds of exploits and multiple payload options.

Metasploit Penetration Testing begins with the Intelligence Gathering Phase. During this phase, Metasploit integrates with various reconnaissance tools such as Nmap, SNMP scans, Windows patch enumeration, and Nessus to find system vulnerabilities. Once the vulnerability is identified, select the exploit and payload to penetrate the crack in the armor. If the exploit is successful, the payload runs on the target, and the user is given a shell to interact with the payload. One of the most common payloads for attacking Windows systems is Meterpreter. This is an interactive shell that is stored only in memory. Metasploit provides various exploit tools for privilege escalation, packet sniffing, pass-the-hash, keylogger, screen capture, and pivot tools when you access the target computer. The user can also set a permanent backdoor when the target computer restarts.

Networks Vulnerability Scanning:

Network vulnerability scanning identifies vulnerabilities in computers, networks, or other IT resources that are potential targets for exploitation by threat actors. Scan your environment for vulnerabilities to find out about your current risk situation, the effectiveness of your security measures, and the opportunity to improve your defenses by fixing vulnerabilities. Obtaining and deploying the Network Vulnerability Scanner is often the first step in creating a more proactive security program. Building high walls and waiting for a siege is no longer enough to counter modern attackers. Modern security programs need to identify and seal vulnerabilities that can be exploited before attackers can exploit them. The Network Vulnerability Scanner provides a good barometer of your security team's overall success and progress by quickly scanning your network for these vulnerabilities, prioritizing and fixing them.

Network vulnerability scanners should be designed to scan the entire IT infrastructure and identify potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited. To do this, the scanner needs (at least) the following features:

· Scan scheduling that does not affect network availability or performance

· Comprehensive scan based on the most comprehensive list of known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations

· Adaptability and scalability to unique network architectures-this also applies to cloud-based containerized assets

· Identify the greatest and most serious threat to the environment

· Prioritization and risk analysis to better inform vulnerability remediation strategies and report progress

NetCat vs. SoCat:

Netcat and Socat allow you to send simple messages between computers over your network interactively. The following settings allow the client and the server to send data to the other party. It works like a simple ad hoc chat program. Socat can communicate with Netcat, and Netcat can communicate with Socat. Netcat is a network utility that reads and writes data over a network connection. Socat is a relay for bidirectional data transmission between two independent data channels.