-sF -sX -sN
Stealth FIN, Xmas Tree, or Null scan modes: There are
times when even SYN scanning isn't clandestine enough.
Some firewalls and packet filters watch for SYNs to
restricted ports, and programs like Synlogger and
Courtney are available to detect these scans. These
advanced scans, on the other hand, may be able to pass
through unmolested.
The idea is that closed ports are required to reply to
your probe packet with an RST, while open ports must
ignore the packets in question (see RFC 793 pp 64).
The FIN scan uses a bare (surprise) FIN packet as the
probe, while the Xmas tree scan turns on the FIN, URG,
and PUSH flags. The Null scan turns off all flags.
Unfortunately Microsoft (like usual) decided to com-
pletely ignore the standard and do things their own
way. Thus this scan type will not work against systems
running Windows95/NT. On the positive side, this is a
good way to distinguish between the two platforms. If
the scan finds open ports, you know the machine is not
a Windows box. If a -sF,-sX,or -sN scan shows all
ports closed, yet a SYN (-sS) scan shows ports being
opened, you are probably looking at a Windows box.
This is less useful now that nmap has proper OS detec-
tion built in. There are also a few other systems that
are broken in the same way Windows is. They include
Cisco, BSDI, HP/UX, MVS, and IRIX. All of the above
send resets from the open ports when they should just
drop the packet.