What is Footprinting ?
What is footprinting ? What is Footprinting ? The systematic footprinting of an organization will allow attackers to create a complete profile of an organization’s security posture. By using a combination of tools and tech- niques, attackers can take an unknown quantity (Widget Company’s Internet connec- tion) and reduce it to a specific range of domain names, network blocks, and individual IP addresses of systems directly connected to the Internet. While there are many types of footprinting techniques, they are primarily aimed at discovering information related to these technologies: Internet, intranet, remote access, and extranet. Table 1-1 depicts these technologies and the critical information an attacker will try to identify. Why Is Footprinting Necessary? Footprinting is necessary to systematically and methodically ensure that all pieces of in- formation related to the aforementioned technologies are identified. Without a sound methodology f...