USE OF FOOTPRITING AND INFORMATION GATHERING IN HACKING

WHAT IS FOOTPRITING AND INFORMATION GATHERING IN HACKING?

Footpriting is the technique used for gathering information about computer systems and the entities they belongs too. 
To get this information, a hacker might use various tools and technologies.

Basically it is the first step where hacker gather as much information as possible to find the way for cracking the whole system or target or atleast decide what types of attacks will be more suitable for the target.

Footpriting can be both passive and active.

Reviewing a company's website is an example of passive footprinting, 
whereas attempting to gain access to sensititve information through social engineering is an example of active information gathering.

During this phase hacking, a hacker can collect the following information>- Domain name
-IP Addresses
-Namespaces
-Employee information 
-Phone numbers
-E-mails 
Job information

Tip-You can use http://www.whois.com/ website to get detailed information about a domain name information including its owner,its registrar, date of registration, expiry, name servers owner's contact information etc.

INFORMATION GATHERING-It is the process of collecting the information from different places about any individual company,organization, server, ip address or person.
Most of the hacker spend his time in this process.

Information gathering plays a vital role for both investigating and attacking purposes.

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