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Ethical Hacking (part 1.0/20): Footprinting and Reconnaissance with examples and tools

Note: The main purpose of this series of articles is to introduce how cyber criminals work from the inside. Being aware of their tools and methods may help you to prevent cyber attacks of your personal or business resources.

Note 2: This article is being updated regularly. The latest update is as of 29/05/2021.

At the end of this article, you will be able to perform footprinting and use many kinds of different footprinting tools on your own.

This article will cover:

1. Introduction to footprinting and reconnaissance
2. Search engines footprinting (google dork, duckduckgo, darkweb, IoT)
3. Network footprinting (websites, emails, DNS)
4. Non-technical footprinting (social media, social engineering)
5. How to prevent footprinting?

Introduction to footprinting and reconnaissance

Footprinting refers to collecting as much information as possible about a potential victim from any accessible sources. For hackers, it’s usually a first step when planning to conduct a cyberattack.