Part 1
Information gathering is a significant part of the hacking process given that it presents the hacker with the crucial information and knowledge about the target organization. Foot printing and port scanning are some of the initial stages and processes of hacking. Foot printing entails all the processes of information gathering about the target organization (Lyon, 2009). Hackers use different methods and source of information to collect crucial information about the target organization. Some of the sources of information include; the target organization’s website, company directories, Google hacking, alternative websites, social engineering and USENETS. The information gathered through foot printing is used to further the subsequent steps of hacking such as port scanning. On the other hand, scanning entails determining network ranges, pinging machines and workstations, and port scanning individual systems. It entail the processes used to map the network, determine the network range and finding open ports and access points in the target organization’s system.
While the two processes are important in hacking process, foot printing is more important than scanning given that it presents vital information which will be used for the entire hacking process. However, it should be noted that both the processes are vital for the hacking process. Foot printing and scanning are difficult for enterprises give that controlling the two processes are virtually out of their range (Lyon, 2009). While there are several practices that an organization can employ to mitigate these processes, it is virtually impossible to prevent the system from the two processes.
Part 2
Hackers employ a wide range of network vulnerability assessment and scanning tools to gather information and scan a target system before they can launch an attack. The most commonly used scanning tools include Nmap and IP scanner. Both of these tools are open source software applications which are readily available on the internet. Network Mapper, mostly known as Nmap, is an open source and free utility for security auditing and network discovery.
In most cases, the application is used for managing schedules for service upgrades, network inventory and monitoring service or host uptime. It employs the use of raw IP packets in the target network to establish which hosts are accessible on the network. Additionally, it establishes the kind of services offered by the hosts, the type of packet firewalls used, as well as the operating system that are running (Lyon, 2009). The application runs on all types of platforms including Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. On the other hand, IP scanner is a free and open source network scanner which is used to scan ports and IP addresses. The tool is used to determine the ports which are open in a system. Similar to Nmap, IP Scanner is a cross platform application which runs on several operating systems such as Mac OS X, Linux and Windows.
References
Lyon, G. F. (2009). Nmap network scanning: The official Nmap project guide to network
discovery and security scanning. Insecure.
