Footprinting and Fingerprinting Attacks

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Enumeration is an attack that aims to list resources on the network, host, or system as a whole to identify potential targets for further attack.

• Footprinting and fingerprinting are enumeration or information gathering attacks

Footprinting is an information-gathering threat in which the attacker attempts to learn about the configuration of the network and security systems.

• allows a threat actor to discover the topology and general configuration of the network and security systems
• can be done by social engineering attacks
  • e.g., persuade users to give information
• port scanning aims to enumerate the TCP/UDP application ports on which a host will accept connections

Fingerprinting allows a threat actor to identify device and OS types and versions.

• when a host responds to a port scan,
  • syntax of response can identify the OS
  • also true of application servers
    • responses often include headers or banners that reveal a lot of information about the server
    • threat actor can use this to probe for known vulnerabilities