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Website Footprinting helps those attackers whose main objective is to collect information about a company or a person. This information is related to the access of the company or person, related to his networks, related to security or to know about the vulnerabilities of the target.
This growing information store on the Internet has also been misused wrongly. Someone can target you very easily by collecting your personal information and tricking you.
The increasing use of technology has pushed people towards the Internet. The search for information has become the appetite of the people. Everyone’s personal information, whether it is a person or a big company, is available on the Internet.
Today in this article I am going to tell you about all the information which is publicly available to everyone on the internet. You may already know some of the techniques of footprinting and some are still to be discovered.
So keep in mind that after reading this article, from today your way of using internet is going to change.
Disclaimer: This article is about the study of public awareness and information search organizations. If you misuse the technology mentioned here, you will be responsible for the damage caused by it.
What is Footprinting or Reconnaissance?
Reconnaissance includes a practice called “Footprinting.” When someone wishes to learn about someone’s personal information, reconnaissance is a useful tool. By employing this method, an attacker can reveal details regarding undiscovered vulnerabilities.
When a hacker enters someone’s network without permission, it is possible to trace their footprints through reconnaissance. Therefore, the term “footprint” refers to a method through which an ethical hacker studies a private, public, or organisational network in order to find security gaps and strengthen them. In contrast, a vulnerability provides a way for a cybercriminal to get access to the system.
We will need a computer website or network in order to comprehend Footprinting practically. The Footprinting procedure will be broken down into a few phases.
Website Footprinting
Website footprinting refers to information such as the date a website was launched, what’s running on webserver, website operating system, its domain name server and the web server it is hosted on. Website footprinting uses Whois technology. Whois technology is now supported by a wide variety of web and computer-based tools.
Multiple vulnerability scanning tools are required. No vulnerability scanner can find every vulnerability present in every component of your network. You may obtain a more accurate picture of your risk exposure by combining many different kinds of vulnerability scanners.
Here are the best online tools for Website Footprinting.
1. Hacker Target
Without tactical intelligence about the network footprint, it is hard to identify an organization’s weaknesses. Hacker Target allow the identification of your attack surface by fusing the greatest open source security scanning technologies available with open source intelligence.
2. You Get Signal
A group of networking and information-gathering tools may be found on YouGetSignal.com. YouGetSignal’s ultimate goal is to provide the worldwide Internet community with a variety of helpful tools.
3. View DNS
With the help of ViewDNS.info’s tools, users may acquire a lot of information on a certain website or IP address. When seen in its raw form, the true value of this footprint can sometimes be ignored, but when used in the right context, it can be rather powerful and effective.
4. Netcraft – Internet Research Tool
Netcraft is a UK-based internet services company that provides internet security services such as cybercrime disruption, application security testing, and automated vulnerability assessments.
5. Whois XML API
Whois XML API have been collecting, examining, and comparing domain, IP, and DNS data for more than a decade. In order to improve the functionality of commercial security systems (SIEM, SOAR, and TIP) we have assembled a special collection of cyber threat intelligence feeds.
6. BuiltWith
BuiltWith technology tracking includes widgets, analytics, frameworks, content management systems, advertisers, content delivery networks, web standards and web servers to name some of the technology categories. Scans for over 46,953 different web technologies. Discover what tools a site uses such as shopping carts, hosting, analytics, and more.
7. DNS Dumpster
DNSdumpster is a FREE domain research tool that can discover hosts related to a domain. Finding visible hosts from the attackers perspective is an important part of the security assessment process.
8. DNS Spy
Concerned about your DNS? Try DNS Spy. Get alerts when your DNS changes, and monitor and backup your DNS. DNS Spy is a powerful tool for those looking to protect their DNS from malicious activity.
10. Whois Domain Tools
Learn how DomainTools takes indicators from your network, including domains and IPs, and connects them with nearly every active domain on the internet. These connections help security professionals profile attackers, guide online fraud investigations, and map cyber activity to attacker infrastructure.
11. Website Informer
Website Informer is a special service for web masters that gathers detailed information on websites. The service is very easy-to-use — simply search for the URL, keyword or install our Widget and there you go!
12. MX Tool Box
Since the authoritative name server for the domain is used directly in the mx lookup, updates to the mx records should take effect immediately. To connect to the mail server, examine reverse DNS records, run a quick open relay test, and gauge response time performance, select diagnostics. Additionally, you may compare every mx record (IP address) against 105 DNS-based blacklists.
13. Maltego
Maltego is a comprehensive tool for graphical link analyses that offers real-time data mining and information gathering, as well as the representation of this information on a node-based graph, making patterns and multiple order connections between said information easily identifiable.
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