Footprinting

What is Footprinting?

The process of collecting data about a target system or organization prior to launching an attack.

Expanded Explanation

Footprinting involves identifying domain names, IP ranges, DNS information, and public-facing applications. It’s often the first step in a security assessment and may use tools like WHOIS, nslookup, or online databases.

Related Terms

OSINT, Reconnaissance, Enumeration, DNS, Passive Scanning.

Want to learn more?

If you’re interested in Footprinting, we recommend: Learn OSINT (Open-source Intelligence) From Scratch Course

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Zaid Sabih
Zaid Sabih

Ethical Hacker, Pentester & Computer Scientist

Zaid Al-Quraishi is an ethical hacker, computer scientist, and founder of zSecurity. He studied CS at UCD, graduating May 2016.

Zaid has a strong background and experience in ethical hacking, starting with tutorials in 2009 in an ethical hacking community, iSecur1ty. He also worked as a penetration tester (pentester) for this company.

In 2013 he started teaching his first course online in Arabic which received extremely positive feedback. This motivated him to create an English version of the course. The English course became the most popular and top paid course on Udemy for almost a year, which further motivated Zaid to design and teach more courses on ethical hacking.

He now offers a number of courses on ethical hacking and more than 800,000 students on Udemy and other teaching platforms such as StackSocial, StackSkills and zSecurity.

Zaid says: "I just love hacking and breaking the rules but don't get me wrong, I am an ethical hacker!"

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