Summary
Gathering information about an organization is critical to penetration tests. Testers will typically be required to identify domains, hosts, users, services, and a multitude of other elements to successfully provide complete black and gray box tests.
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is information that can be gathered from third-party sources without interacting with the target’s systems and networks. OSINT can be gathered through searches, gathering and reviewing metadata from documents and other materials that are publicly available, reviewing third-party information sources like public records and databases, and through the use of additional resources, like social media.
Active footprinting requires the penetration tester to interact with target systems, networks, and services. While port scanning is an important element of active footprinting, many other techniques can also be used, ranging from active enumeration of users and network devices via scans and queries to...