Patent ID: 8902790

Claim:
A method to operate a network mapping tool, comprising: using a network mapping tool, during a first scan performing a network mapping operation over a first set of ports to generate a list of hosts that are found to be alive; using the same network mapping tool, during a second scan performing a sequential scan on only those hosts in the list to detect an identification of an operating system of each host in the list; and using a plurality of invocations of the same network mapping tool, during a third scan performing a parallel port scan on multiple hosts in parallel to detect characteristics of only those hosts in the list, where for each host in the list the detected characteristics imply deterministically an identification of a particular operating system running on the host, and where for a certain one of the hosts in the list if the identification of the particular operating system that is implied deterministically during the third scan differs from the identification of the operating system that was detected for that host during the second scan, identifying as the operating system of that certain one of the hosts the certain operating system that is implied deterministically during the third scan instead of the operating system that was detected during the second scan.