An Efficient Internet-Wide Scan Approach Based on Location Awareness

Wenqi Shi, Huiling Shi (), Hao Hao () and Qiuyu Guan
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Wenqi Shi: Key Laboratory of Computing Power Network and Information Security, Ministry of Education, Shandong Computer Science Center (National Supercomputer Center in Jinan), Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan 250103, China
Huiling Shi: Key Laboratory of Computing Power Network and Information Security, Ministry of Education, Shandong Computer Science Center (National Supercomputer Center in Jinan), Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan 250103, China
Hao Hao: Key Laboratory of Computing Power Network and Information Security, Ministry of Education, Shandong Computer Science Center (National Supercomputer Center in Jinan), Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan 250103, China
Qiuyu Guan: Faculty of Computer Science and Technology, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan 250103, China

Future Internet, 2025, vol. 17, issue 8, 1-16

Abstract: With increasing network security threats, Internet-wide scanning has become a key technique for identifying network vulnerabilities. However, traditional scanning methods tend to ignore the impact of geographic factors on scanning efficiency. In this study, we experimentally find that the geographic location of the scanner has a significant impact on scanning efficiency. Based on this finding, we propose a large-scale network scanning method based on geographic location awareness. The method divides scanners into multiple scanner clusters based on their geographic locations and designs a similarity matrix based on the average scanning time to quantify the scanning efficiency between two geographic locations. To avoid wasting scanning resources, we implement a load-balancing mechanism between scanner clusters and between nodes within each cluster. Experimental validation in a real network environment shows that the proposed method can effectively improve the scanning efficiency while ensuring the coverage.

Keywords: Internet-wide port scan; location awareness; task scheduling; network security (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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