Question : Ping sweeps and Port scans

My boss has just heard about some nefarious computer activities called ping sweeps and port scans. He wants to know more about them and what the impact of these activities might be on your company.  Is this activity something to worry about or not?

Answer : Ping sweeps and Port scans

a ping sweep it the process of sending a ping (packet internet groper) packet to every possible addres on a network to see what addresses are in use.

a port scan scans an individual address at a time for either a specific port (horizontal scan) or a range of ports (virtical scan) if the person doing the scanning can find out what ports are open then they have an idea of how to attack

eg port 3389 is RDP 5900 is VNC, Web servers are on Port 80 mail server on 25 etc etc