A penetration tester wants to automatically enumerate all ciphers permitted on TLS/SSL configurations across a...

The Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) best supports automated enumeration of permitted TLS/SSL ciphers across many targets because it enables repeatable, script-driven service interrogation during scanning. In PenTest+ vulnerability scanning and enumeration tasks, Nmap is used not only for port/service discovery but also for deeper service assessment using scripts such as those that enumerate SSL/TLS protocol versions and the cipher suites a server will negotiate. This directly matches the requirement to “automatically enumerate all ciphers permitted” on both internet-facing and internal web servers, since Nmap can be pointed at IP ranges and host lists and run the same TLS enumeration consistently across the environment, producing comparable results for analysis and reporting.

Shodan is primarily an external internet-wide search engine and is not suitable for internal-only hosts and controlled, comprehensive enumeration. Impacket targets Windows/AD and network protocol operations rather than TLS cipher auditing. Netcat can connect to services but does not provide scalable, structured cipher enumeration. Burp Suite is excellent for web application testing, but it is not the most direct or scalable choice for environment-wide TLS cipher inventory compared to scripted Nmap scanning.