What is Footprinting?

Footprinting is the first step which hackers take before gaining access into any network. It basically involves collection of information and identification of loop holes in the security. The systematic footprinting of an organization enables attackers to create a complete profile of an organization’s security posture like system architecture, network blocks and IP addresses exposed on the Internet. Hackers gain reconnaissance of the target following a sequence of steps as:

1. Open Source Footprinting– The first step a hacker takes is to visit the website of a potential target. He then looks for contact information of the administrators which may help in guessing the password or in Social Engineering.

2. Network Enumeration– This is the next step in gaining information where the hacker tries to identify the domain names and the network blocks of the target network.

3. Scanning– Once the network block is known, the next step is to spy for active IP addresses on the target network. The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is a good alternative for identifying active IP addresses.

4. Stack Fingerprinting– Once the hosts and port have been mapped by scanning the target network, the final footprinting step can be performed. This step is called stack fingerprinting. This is the process of determining the operating system and different version of services running on target hosts.