Nmap 5.00 Released with new additions: ndiff, ncat; nse and better performance!!!

This is awesome news. Nmap version 5.00 has been released. It is the first major release since 4.50 in 2007. Here is a more detailed overview of the changes.

To have a quick glance, here are the top 5 improvements in Nmap 5:

1. The new Ncat tool. It will do data transfer, redirection, and debugging.
   
2. Ndiff is a scan comparison tool. It will make it easy to automatically scan your network daily and report on any changes
   
3. Nmap's 5.0 performance has improved dramatically.
   
4. Nmap Network Scanning, the official Nmap guide to network discovery and security scanning.
   
5. The Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) . It allows users to write (and share) simple scripts to automate a wide variety of networking tasks. New scripts include a whole bunch of MSRPC/NetBIOS attacks, queries, and vulnerability probes; open proxy detection; whois and AS number lookup queries; brute force attack scripts against the SNMP and POP3 protocols; and many more.
   

This just looks awesome. Playing with NMAP 5.0 goes on to my TODO list for the next month!

(Photo under creative commons from libraryman's photostream)