Netcat (often abbreviated to nc) is a computer networking utility for reading from and writing to network connections using TCP or UDP. Netcat is designed to be a dependable back-end that can be used directly or easily driven by other programs and scripts. At the same time, it is a feature-rich network debugging and investigation tool, since it can produce almost any kind of connection its user could need and has a number of built-in capabilities. Its list of features includes port scanning, transferring files, and port listening, and it can be used as a backdoor.