Mapping the Network

 

 Mapping the Network

When you want to make a solid plan on how you are going to layout your ethical hacking plan, one of the first things that you need to know is how much other people know about your network. While you may think that you have complete anonymity online, your computer continually leaves footprints that point towards you and the system that you are using.

To get a better idea about how much information about you or your domain is available to the public, you may want to take a look at the following:

Whois

Whois is an online tool that you can use to see whether a domain name is available. However, it can also be used to see registration information about existing domains. That means that there is a big chance that your email addresses and contact information are being broadcasted online.

Whois also provides information about DNS servers that are being used by your domain and details about your service provider’s tech support. It also has a tool called the DNSstuff, which performs the following:

• Display which hosts handles that email for a particular domain
• Display locations of hosts
• See whether a particular host is blacklisted as a span host
• Show general information about a domain’s registration.  

Apart from the Whois, you can get similar information about different domains by using the following:

1. www.dot.gov – provides information about the government

2. www.nic.mil – provides information about the military

3. www.afrinic.net – provides information from an Internet Registry in Africa.

4. www.apnic.net – provides information on Asia Pacific Regional Internet Registry. 

5. ws.arin.net/whois/index.html – provides information about the Internet Registry on some parts of subequatorial Africa, North America, and some areas in the Carribean.

6. www.lacnic.net/en - provides information about Carribean and Latin American internet registries

7. www.db.ripe.net/whois - provides information about internet registry in African, European, Middle East, and Central Asian regions.

Forums and Google Groups

Forums and Google Groups Forums and Google groups provide a wealth of information about public network information, such as IP addresses, usernames, and lists of full qualified domain names (FQDNS). You can search for tons of Usenet posts and find private information that you may not realize has been posted in public, which may include highly confidential information that may reveal too much about your system activities. Here’s a tip: if you are aware that you have confidential information posted online, you may be able to get it out of the internet so long as you have the right credentials. All you need to do is to reach out to the support personnel of the forum of the Google group or forum that posted the private information and file a report. 

Privacy Policies

A website’s privacy policy is a way to let people who are using the site become aware of the types of information that are being collected from them and how information is protected whenever they visit the site. However, a privacy policy should not divulge any other information that may provide hackers ideas on how they can infiltrate a system.

If you are starting to build your website or trying to hire someone to write your privacy policy, see to it that you do not broadcast the infrastructure of your network security. Any information about your firewall and other security protocols will give clues to criminal hackers on how they can breach your system.