In the world of Active Directory security, running the Print Spooler service on a Domain Controller is an unforced error. We saw exactly why with ‘PrintNightmare’—a vulnerability that turned a mundane background service into a highway for ransomware and domain-wide compromise.
The reality is simple: if your DC is managing print jobs, it’s also managing an unnecessary attack surface.
Can you check for the Print Spooler service or the PrintNightmare vulnerability using only Nmap? Yes.
But should you IMO? NO
Relying solely on Nmap for specific RPC endpoint enumeration like this is inefficient. It’s “loud” on the network (generating excessive traffic that trips IDS), it relies on NSE scripts that may not be maintained, and it lacks the granularity you need for a verified audit. However it is still valuable to know, and to run to test those “IDS” once and awhile, provided you tell the appropriate people.
So, the Nmap solution:
nmap -p 445 --script smb-vuln-printnightmare <TARGET_IP>
You can look for the Spooler UUID (`12345678-1234-ABCD-EF00-0123456789AB`) via the Endpoint Mapper.
nmap -p 135 --script msrpc-enum <TARGET_IP> | grep "Spooler"
This Nmap method often produces false negatives if the Endpoint Mapper is filtered or if the NSE script crashes due to timeout issues. It is not audit-grade reliability.
The Python Approach
I have written a specialized script for you below. This uses the `impacket` library, which is the industry standard for interacting with Windows network protocols in Python.
Prerequisites:
pip install impacket dnspython requests
By leveraging LDAP for discovery, we eliminate network noise while ensuring that every single Domain Controller is accounted for, every time. This shifts your security posture from reactive, periodic checks to real-time awareness.
With the webhook you can trigger a mechanism the moment configuration drift occurs on your Domain Controllers.
Hope this helps!
Edit your crontab
crontab -e
Add the following line to run daily at 8 AM:
0 8 * * * /usr/bin/python3 /opt/scripts/audit_dc_spoolers.py -d corp.local -u svc_audit -p "S3cure!" -t 10.10.10.5 \\
--webhook https://hooks.slack.com/services/T0000/B0000/XXXX >> /var/log/spooler_audit.log 2>&1