Frequently asked questions
Several of these answers are “no”. Those are the ones worth reading — the cost of finding out on site is a great deal higher than the cost of finding out here.
The basics
- What is CySecTek?
- A network toolkit for Windows. It identifies which switch port your machine is plugged into by reading the switch's own LLDP and CDP advertisements, sweeps subnets for devices, scans ports, and gives you SSH, SFTP, serial console and RDP access — plus temporary TFTP and DHCP servers for staging hardware. Twelve tools in one installer.
- Who is it for?
- People who go to the equipment: network engineers, field-service technicians, infrastructure administrators, IT support teams, managed service providers and data-centre technicians. If your work involves standing next to a rack, or talking someone else through one, it was built around that.
- Is it free?
- Yes. There is no paid tier, no trial period, no account and no licence key. Download it and use it.
- Why would I use this instead of the tools I already have?
- For any single job, you probably would not — PuTTY, Wireshark and Nmap are each better at their own speciality. The argument is that a call-out needs six of these tools and switching between six applications on a laptop screen is where the time goes. A host you find in the scanner opens straight into SSH; the switch port and the terminal are the same window.
Installing and running it
- Which versions of Windows does it run on?
- Windows 10 and Windows 11, 64-bit. There is no 32-bit build, and no macOS or Linux version.
- Why does Windows warn me when I run the installer?
- Because the installer is not code-signed yet, and SmartScreen correctly reports that nobody has vouched for the file. It is not a false positive. Verify the SHA-256 published on the download page before you run it — that is the check that actually establishes the file is ours.
- When will it be signed?
- When a certificate is in place. A signing certificate requires a verified organisation or a validated individual identity, and that process is still being worked through. We are not going to give a date we cannot keep.
- Do I need administrator rights?
- Not to install it — it installs per-user — and not for normal use. Packet capture is the single exception, because Windows only exposes raw capture to an elevated process.
- What is Npcap and do I have to install it?
- Npcap is a packet-capture driver from the Nmap project. Two features need it: Port Finder, because LLDP and CDP frames are invisible to an ordinary socket, and Packet Capture. Everything else works without it. If you already have Wireshark installed, you already have Npcap.
- Can I deploy it across a fleet?
- There is an MSI for Intune and Group Policy. Be aware that it is unsigned, which most deployment tooling will flag and some will refuse outright — worth establishing before you plan a rollout.
Security and privacy
- Where are my saved passwords stored?
- Encrypted with ChaCha20-Poly1305, under a key derived from your app password with Argon2id, in the application's own store. The app password itself is never written to disk, so a credential file copied off your machine is useless without it.
- What happens if I forget the app password?
- The saved credentials are permanently unreadable. Not by us, not by anyone — that is what 'the password is never stored' means. You can set a new password and carry on; the connection entries survive, but the stored passwords do not. Put the password in a password manager before you set it.
- Does it send any data anywhere?
- There is no telemetry, no analytics and no account. The application makes three kinds of outbound request, all tied to something you are doing: a version check to cysectek.com, a public-IP lookup to api.ipify.org on the overview screen, and — when you press the button on the diagnostics screen — requests to Google's and Microsoft's connectivity endpoints. Scan results, credentials and transcripts stay on your machine.
- Has it been security audited?
- No. There has been no third-party audit and no penetration test, and the security page says so plainly rather than implying otherwise.
- How do I report a security issue?
- Email info@cysectek.com with what you found, how to reproduce it and the impact you think it has. Please allow a reasonable window to fix it before publishing. There is no bug bounty — this is one person's project.
What it does and does not do
- Does it support SSH keys?
- Yes. OpenSSH format keys — Ed25519, RSA and ECDSA — including encrypted ones, plus legacy PEM RSA. Keys already in ~/.ssh are offered on the connection form. PuTTY's .ppk is not read directly; the app tells you how to convert it in PuTTYgen.
- Does it support SSH agents, tunnelling or jump hosts?
- No, none of the three. There is no Pageant or ssh-agent support, no port forwarding and no bastion support. If you reach equipment through a jump host, keep the tool that does that.
- Does it replace Wireshark?
- No. Capture here is a visibility check — one line per packet, no detail tree, no follow-stream, no pcap files. For actual trace analysis, use Wireshark. It is free and it is better at this.
- Does it replace Nmap?
- No. The scanner is a native TCP and UDP sweep answering 'is this port open on this host'. There is no OS fingerprinting, no service-version detection and no scripting engine. For security assessment work, Nmap remains the right tool.
- Why does Port Finder show nothing?
- Most often you have not waited long enough — switches advertise on their own timer, typically every 30 to 60 seconds. After that, check Npcap is installed, and check what is between you and the switch: a dock, desk hub or unmanaged switch may not forward the frames. If all that is right, the switch has LLDP and CDP disabled and the information simply is not on the wire.
- Why do I need Location Services on for Wi-Fi scanning?
- Windows will not return wireless scan results to any application unless Location Services is enabled. It is a platform rule that applies to every wireless tool on Windows, not a decision this app makes.
Support and licensing
- Is there a Linux or macOS version?
- Not today. A Linux port was started and is currently on hold. There is no macOS build and none planned.
- How do I get support?
- Email info@cysectek.com. Include the version from the About screen, what you were doing and the exact message you saw. Reproducible bugs get fixed.
- Can I use it commercially?
- Yes. There is no restriction on commercial use and no per-seat licence.
Still unanswered?
The documentation goes further, and anything it does not cover is worth an email.