Netcat Network Utility

Overview

Netcat (nc) is the "Swiss Army knife" of networking tools, providing simple Unix utility for reading and writing data across network connections. This skill covers authorized offensive security applications including reverse shells, bind shells, file transfers, port scanning, and banner grabbing.

IMPORTANT: Netcat capabilities can be used maliciously. Only use these techniques in authorized penetration testing environments with proper written permission.

Quick Start

Basic connection and listening:

# Listen on port 4444
nc -lvnp 4444

# Connect to remote host
nc <target-ip> <port>