Active Reconnaissance

The more information is collected about a target, the more it helps ethical hackers and penetration testers improve exploit development during the weaponization phase of the Cyber Kill Chain and identify the best method to deliver the malicious payload to the target. Active reconnaissance helps you collect information that’s not publicly available, such as which services are running and how many ports exist on a targeted system. For instance, if you’re targeting a web server, it’s important to identify the web application and its version. In addition, it would be useful to also identify the operating system that’s hosting the web application.

During this chapter, you will understand the need for active reconnaissance techniques during ethical hacking and penetration testing assessments on a target system, network, and organization. You will explore active scanning techniques, which are commonly used to identify live systems, their...