Footprinting through Social Networking Sites

1.3 Footprinting through Social Networking Sites

My resume of module 02 footprinting form CEH material

While footprinting through social networking sites may seem social engineering (such is discussed in more detail later), there the two methods. In footprinting through social engineering, revealing information, whereas in footprinting through social gathers information available on those sites. Attackers can even medium to perform social engineering attacks.

Collecting Information through Social Engineering on Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites are the online services, platforms, or other sites that allow people to connect with each other and to build interpersonal relations.

ocial networking sites are open to everyone. Attackers may take advantage of this to gather sensitive information from users either by browsing through users’ public profiles or by creating a fake profile to pose as a genuine user. On social networking sites, people may post personal information such as date of birth, educational information, employment backgrounds, spouse’s names and so on. Organizations often post information such as potential partners, websites, and upcoming news about the company.

For an attacker, social networking sites can be great sources of information about the target person or organization. The attacker can only gather information that is posted by individuals.

Information Available on Social Networking Sites

The activities of users on the social networking sites and the respective information that an attacker can collect is shown in the following table.

Like individuals, organizations also use social networking sites to connect with people, promote their products, and to gather feedback about their products and services. The activities of an organization on the social networking sites and the respective information that an attacker can collect is shown in below table.