Footprinting and Reconnaissance............

hey,
       I'm MahakaaL . And you known  me Who am i? And today i will tell you about  Footprinting and Reconnaissance .

What is Footprinting?

Refers to the process of collecting as much as information as possible about the target system to find ways to penetrate into the system. An Ethical hacker has to spend the majority of his time in profiling an organization, gathering information about the host, network and people related to the organization.

Information such as ip address, Whois records, DNS information, an operating system used, employee email id, Phone numbers etc is collected.

Footprinting helps to 

Know Security Posture

The data gathered will help us to get an overview of the security posture of the company such as details about the presence of a firewall, security configurations of applications etc.

Reduce Attack Area

Can identify a specific range of systems and concentrate on particular targets only. This will greatly reduce the number of systems we are focussing on.

Identify vulnerabilities

We can build an information database containing the vulnerabilities, threats, loopholes available in the system of the target organization.

Draw Network map

 Helps to draw a network map of the networks in the target organization covering topology, trusted routers, presence of server and other information.

During this phase, a hacker can collect the following information −

• 
  Domain name
• 
  IP Addresses
• 
  Namespaces
• 
  Employee information
• 
  Phone numbers
• 
  E-mails
• 
  Job Information

What is Reconnaissance?

Information Gathering and getting to know the target systems is the first process in ethical hacking. Reconnaissance is a set of processes and techniques (Footprinting, Scanning & Enumeration) used to covertly discover and collect information about a target system.

During reconnaissance, an ethical hacker attempts to gather as much information about a target system as possible, following the seven steps listed below −

1. 
   Gather initial information
2. 
   Determine the network range
3. 
   Identify active machines
4. 
   Discover open ports and access points
5. 
   Fingerprint the operating system
6. 
   Uncover services on ports
7. 
   Map the network

We will discuss in detail all these steps in the subsequent chapters of this tutorial. Reconnaissance takes place in two parts − Active Reconnaissanceand Passive Reconnaissance.

Active Reconnaissance

In this process, you will directly interact with the computer system to gain information. This information can be relevant and accurate. But there is a risk of getting detected if you are planning active reconnaissance without permission. If you are detected, then system admin can take severe action against you and trail your subsequent activities.

Passive Reconnaissance

In this process, you will not be directly connected to a computer system. This process is used to gather essential information without ever interacting with the target systems.                                                                             

                                                                                                     By : MahakaaL