Practical Ethical Hacking: First Step - Reconnaissance
ETHICAL HACKINGCYBERSECURITY
Ethical hacking has become an important skill in the ever-changing environment of security to maintain the security and integrity of digital systems. Ethical hackers, often known as "white hat" hackers, do regulated and authorized penetration testing to find flaws in a company's network, applications, and infrastructure. This article will concentrate on the first and most important step in ethical hacking: reconnaissance.
Understanding Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the first stage of ethical hacking in which hackers obtain critical information about the target system or organization. It entails obtaining passive information from publicly available sources in order to get insights into the target's infrastructure, staff, technology, and potential weaknesses. Proper reconnaissance lays the groundwork for the following stages of ethical hacking and has a substantial impact on the engagement's overall success.
Passive Reconnaissance Techniques
Open Source Intelligence (OSINT): OSINT involves gathering information from publicly accessible sources such as social media, online forums, company websites, and publicly accessible databases. OSINT can be used to collect information such as employee names, email addresses, software versions, and IP ranges. Several OSINT technologies, such as Maltego, Shodan, and the Harvester, help ethical hackers harvest data more efficiently.
Footprinting: Footprinting is the process of obtaining information about a target's internet presence in a systematic manner. It involves identifying the target's Internet Service Provider (ISP), domain name registration information, and potential IP address ranges. Footprinting is aided by tools like nslookup, whois, and traceroute.
Social Engineering: Although social engineering is more active in nature, it generally begins with passive data collection. Ethical hackers may utilize social engineering techniques to trick people into disclosing sensitive information like passwords or system setups.
Google Dorking: Google Dorking is the practice of employing advanced search operators on Google to locate sensitive material that has been inadvertently disclosed. Searching for "intitle:"index of" "pass.txt" may reveal the website's juicy info in plaintext format.
