Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Guide

Chapter 3Information Gathering Techniques

There is a saying that goes “The more information you have about the target, the more is the chance of successful exploitation.” Information gathering is the first phase of hacking. In this phase, we gather as much information as possible regarding the target’s online presence, which in turn reveal useful information about the target itself. The required information will depend on whether we are doing a network pentest or a web application pentest. In the case of a network pentest, our main goal would be to gather information on the network. The same applies to web application pentests. In this module, we will discuss numerous methods of real-world information intelligence.

In general, all information ...