Viewing portscan alerts

Portscan activity is alerted through the existing portscan-specific intrusion events. Intrusion events with generator ID (GID) 122 and Snort ID from SIDs 1 through 27 are generated. For these events, the (port_scan) string is prepended in the event messages. The events include packet information along with packet data containing the statistics that triggered the alert.

To see portscan events, go to Events & Logs > + Show more > Intrusion > Events.

Portscan issues these events regardless of your instrusion policy or NAP configuration. Events are issued only when scanners exceed the number of configured ports/protocols/hosts for the various types of scan or sweep within the configured time interval for the associated protocol. A port scan from one host generates one event per set interval as soon as the threshold is met. If the same host initiates a new port scan during the same interval, no event is reported.

The following table shows the possible events.

Portscan events

Portscan type

Intrusion event

TCP Regular, Decoy, Distributed Scan

122:1 (port_scan) TCP portscan

TCP Portsweep

122:3 (port_scan) TCP portsweep

TCP Distributed Scan

122:4 (port_scan) TCP distributed portscan

IP Regular, Decoy, Distributed Protocol Scan n

122:9 (port_scan) IP protocol scan

IP Protocol Sweep

122:11 (port_scan) IP protocol sweep

IP Distributed Scan

122:12 (port_scan) IP distributed protocol scan

UDP Regular, Decoy, Distributed Scan

122:17 (port_scan) UDP portscan

UDP Portsweep

122:19 (port_scan) UDP portsweep

UDP Distributed Scan

122:20 (port_scan) UDP distributed portscan

ICMP Sweep

122:25 (port_scan) ICMP sweep

Portscan Block

122:100 (port_scan) host blocked due to portscan activity