Privacy Defended: Protecting Yourself Online

Footprinting Analysis

Footprinting is the process by which an attacker tries to learn as much as he can about the target. Think of it as reconnaissance. An intelligent attacker would try to learn as much as he could so that a more focused and direct attack could be made against the target. For example, if he discovers that the target is running Windows 98, it would be useless to try attacks that only work against Windows 2000 machines. Being able to complete the footprinting process in a quick and accurate manner is an indication of a skilled attacker. The footprinting process typically involves the following basic steps:

1.	Host identification
2.	Open ports
3.	Running services and their versions
4.	Operating system identification

Host ...