Network security assessment is a mix of computerized and manual vulnerability testing. As I will be focusing mainly on footprinting and scanning, it would be important first to know what they are. Footprinting that forms part of reconnaissance refers to the process used in obtaining information about computer systems and the different classes to which they belong to. Footprinting reveals system vulnerability and improves the ease through which they are exploited (Wu, Zhang, & Cao, 2017). On the other hand, scanning refers to the procedure of identifying active hosts on a network.
I would use the standard set of procedures for assessing a network, which includes:
• Network footprinting to know the IP networks and hosts of interest.
• Network scanning to identify some of the vulnerable hosts. …show more content…
Through querying, attackers can get information about the structure of a target network. The first part, which is also referred to as the reconnaissance part, would help in discovering the network devices and other hosts of interest (Wu, Zhang, & Cao, 2017). I would use The Tried and true network mapper (Nmap). Usually, I’d use this tool to perform the alive scans to know some hosts which are online in the given network. Also, I’d also use the Nmap tool to dig deeper into the automated scans and to verify them. The tool will help me in scanning ports, listing services, and their version numbers. By using this tool, I will gather details about internal IP addresses collected from DNS servers, Internet-based network blocks, and insight into the target organization DNS structure. This is important because it uncovers hosts that are not adequately secured against unauthorized access. This constitutes the footprinting process part of the network security