Hacking: The Next Generation

What Information Is Important?

What kind of information is important to an attacker and what isn’t? All information that an attacker can find can be used for some purpose. From the attacker’s perspective, all information is important. Some information can be more critical than other information. Information that could be deemed critical for an attacker to have would include:

• An employee’s personally identifiable information (PII), such as work and home phone numbers, work and home addresses, criminal history, Social Security numbers, and credit reports

• Network layouts, including the number of web servers and mail servers, their locations, and the software versions they run

• Company files, including database files, network diagrams, internal papers and documentation, spreadsheets, and so forth

• Company information such as mergers and acquisitions, business partners, hosting services, and so forth

• Organizational information, including organizational charts detailing the corporate structure of who reports to whom

• Work interactions detailing such information as who gets along at the office, how often direct reports communicate with their managers, how often managers communicate with their subordinates, how they communicate (e.g., via email, phone, BlackBerry), and so forth

The information outlined here can be public or private. Attackers who have done their preliminary research are rewarded greatly. All of the information obtained during reconnaissance can benefit the attacker in some way, including ...