Network device identification, also known as device discovery, is the process of finding network equipment and gathering detailed information about them, such as device status, response time, and IP address. It’s typically the first activity IT teams perform while mapping and monitoring their network infrastructure for better visibility on connected nodes or devices.
A simple way to identify an "unknown device on a network" is through the command-line interface (CLI) of your computer system. Operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and macOS have their own set of networking commands such as "ipconfig" and “ping” for basic scanning and troubleshooting. Mapping network devices also requires an understanding of IP address allocation. To communicate with other nodes or machines in a network, a device requires a unique IP address. The address is either dynamically assigned by a DHCP server or static and manually.
Outlined below are steps to help you identify network devices, including unknown equipment:
Manual identification of devices and their associated IP addresses in large, hybrid, or multi-vendor networks is often time-consuming for IT teams.
Network device discovery software automatically scans and monitors network devices and maintains an updated asset inventory, making it an effective solution for companies with burning questions such as how to quickly identify devices on the network. You can quickly track the IP and MAC address, connection speed, and port details of all connected devices with such software. Network discovery tools use various discovery protocols such as SNMP, LLDP and CDP to gather detailed device information. In addition, such tools use ping sweeps to detect the active status of network equipment. Devices or hosts that don’t respond to ICMP echo requests made by discovery tools are termed inactive.
Modern network discovery tools can also help you visually analyze your devices' logical and physical connections using dynamic network maps. These maps can detect unknown devices and changes to the network topology. For example, you can discover all the unauthorized links made by a compromised or rogue device using network mapping and subsequently block them. With packet-level analysis of network traffic, scanning tools allow you to drill down to the root causes of network slowdown, detect unusual traffic, and help prevent security issues.
Manually logging in to the router's web interface is one method to identify network devices in wireless networks. However, this doesn’t provide granular information about your network devices, such as data transmission rate and packet loss. Typically, every device in a wireless network has a unique local IP and MAC address assigned by routers using dynamic host configuration (DHCP) protocol to track them.
Outlined below are the steps to identify network devices via the router web portal:
To more easily identify network devices on Wi-Fi, a network scanning tool is designed to provide detailed information from wireless access points, including SSID, device type, signal strength, and connected devices. These tools can be handy for device discovery and troubleshooting network security and performance issues in enterprise wireless networks.
For example, attackers often exploit vulnerabilities in enterprise wireless access points or routers for network infiltration and control. They use techniques such as packet sniffing, password theft, and man-in-the-middle attacks to steal sensitive information.
Modern network scanning software can help prevent unauthorized access attempts with regular monitoring and analysis of wireless devices for security issues.
Performing device discovery using network scanning tools is designed to make monitoring networks easier with the following built-in features:
Multi-vendor network monitoring that scales and expands with the needs of your network.
IT software designed to simplify and automate DHCP, DNS, and IP address management.
Network mapping software built to automatically plot your network.
Reduce cost, save work hours, and remain compliant using a comprehensive network management system.