The Nmap Scripting Engine was introduced in 2007 in Version 4.5, and it extended its functionality to a whole new level using the information gathered during a network scan and performing additional tasks powered by the scripting language Lua. This feature has become a whole arsenal by itself, with almost 600 scripts already officially included, as you have learned throughout this book.
Lua is a scripting language currently used in other important projects, such as Wireshark, Suricata, Snort, and even Adobe Photoshop, for a lot of very good reasons but mainly because it is very lightweight and extensible. As an NSE developer, my experience with Lua has been very positive. The language is very powerful and flexible, yet with a clear and easy-to-learn syntax. Because Lua programming is a whole topic by itself, please refer to the Appendix E, Introduction to Lua, and if you need to go deeper, go read...
