What is Footprinting ?

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Website with detailed information would be great

 

[dotcomguy]

The systematic footprinting of an organization enables attackers to create a complete profile of an organization’s security posture. By using a combination of tools and techniques, attackers can take an unknown quantity (Widget Company’s Internet connection) and reduce it to a specific range of domain names, network blocks, and individual IP addresses of systems directly connected to the Internet. While there are many types of footprinting techniques, they are primarily aimed at discovering information related to the following environments: Internet, intranet, remote access, and extranet.

Links :

http://www.hackinthebox.org/modules...=article&sid=5359&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=236722
http://jamesthornton.com/writing/footprinting.pdf

 

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Is it vital ?

 

[Sachiel]

Footprinting is necessary to systematically and methodically ensure that all pieces of information related to the aforementioned technologies are identified. Without a sound methodology for performing this type of reconnaissance, you are likely to miss key pieces of information related to a specific technology or organization. Footprinting is often the most arduous task of trying to determine the security posture of an entity; however, it is one of the most important. Footprinting must be performed accurately and in a controlled fashion.