Protection

So far in this chapter, we have learned about the basics of computer networking, which are essential to understanding the rest of this book. Now, we will start looking at what parameters can be used to track us and how we can protect ourselves. In the previous chapter, we learned that the first step in ethical hacking is information gathering. But before we start gathering information, we must make sure that our identity is protected. Otherwise, we can be easily tracked. Your identity can be tracked back to you with a number of parameters. The most common is your IP address and your MAC address.

To mask your public IP address, you can use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). We will not be discussing VPNs as they are not in the scope of this book. One important thing to note here is that you should not put complete trust in your VPN provider. From a security point of view, using a VPN simply means that you are handing over your trust from your internet service provider ...