Exploring passive reconnaissance

Passive reconnaissance focuses on collecting information without directly connecting or interacting with the target. This method reduces the threat level of the ethical hacker and penetration tester, thereby reducing the likelihood of triggering any alerts that notify the target that someone is collecting information about them, their systems, and network infrastructure.

Each day, more data is being uploaded and created on the internet by people around the world. Whether someone is uploading a picture of themselves, a fun marketing video, or even information about new products and services for new and existing customers, the internet stores lots of data that can be harvested and carefully analyzed by cyber criminals to better understand their targets and improve their cyber operations. As previously mentioned, ethical hackers and penetration testers use the same TTPs as real threat actors as a method to efficiently discover how organizations are...