Passive Footprinting of Target Organization- Techniques and Methods for Reconnaissance
Footprinting is a process that involves collecting information about a target organization, such as its network, systems, and security state, so as to identify potential vulnerabilities (Venkadasubbiah et al., 2022). Hackers use this technique to collect critical organization data without interacting directly with the organization’s systems. In this report, Microsoft, a multinational company, is selected as the target organization for passive footprinting.
Footprinting Techniques and Results
To obtain information about Microsoft, a variety of passive footprinting methods were employed (Lianq & Selvarajah, 2022). There was footprinting through search engines, where the Google search engine was used to search for several keywords related to Microsoft. Keywords included “Microsoft”, “Microsoft employees”, and “Microsoft security”. Footprinting through social networking sites was employed to search for Microsoft employees. This was done on Microsoft groups and communities and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Network footprinting was used to perform a passive scan on Microsoft’s IP addresses to check for open ports and services. Lastly, a website search was done to get information about Microsoft, such as its business registration details.
Through passive footprinting, a significant amount of Microsoft’s information was collected. Microsoft employs about 221,000 people worldwide, where 60 percent of these employees are located in the United States. From the search, the headquarters of Microsoft is Redmond, One Microsoft Way in the US. It has 220 office locations around the world. Microsoft’s network infrastructure is complex and has over four million servers for its variety of products and services. In terms of security, it is quite strong. However, there are vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s exchange servers, which can be exploited by hackers
Importance of Footprinting
Footprinting is an essential part of ethical hacking as it enables organizations to detect vulnerabilities in their systems and address them earlier. It helps identify the quality of an organization’s system. For penetration testing, the first step is usually footprinting. Passive footprinting methods are used by ethical hackers to collect information before launching any potential attacks. The penetration testing plan requires this information to be collected.
Review of Microsoft’s Network and System Information
Microsoft has put in place all necessary actions to ensure its systems are reliable and effective. Microsoft’s systems can detect potential threats to its users and take necessary actions before hackers identify them. The organization has a Microsoft Security Response Center to handle vulnerabilities in its systems. However, its exchange servers have vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers (Pitney et al., 2022).
Microsoft Security Posture
Microsoft has significantly invested in security, and all its employees have a security cultured conduct. The security posture is generally strong but not immune to attacks. Some of the vulnerabilities I have identified include vulnerabilities in their Microsoft 365 products, such as memory corruption in their equation editor. There were also vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Exchange server through remote code execution.
References
Lianq, K. S., & Selvarajah, V. (2022). Footprinting and reconnaissance: Impact and risks. 2022 IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing and Electrical Circuits and Electronics (ICDCECE). https://doi.org/10.1109/icdcece53908.2022.9793237
Pitney, A. M., Penrod, S., Foraker, M., & Bhunia, S. (2022). A systematic review of 2021 Microsoft Exchange data breach exploiting multiple vulnerabilities. 2022 7th International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Technologies (SpliTech). https://doi.org/10.23919/splitech55088.2022.9854268
Venkadasubbiah, S., Yuvaraj, D., Ali, S., & Ayoobkhan, M. U. A. (2022). Data footprinting in big data. In Studies in Big Data (pp. 203–218). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05752-6_13
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Question 
Choose an organization to target for passive footprinting.
Conduct reconnaissance of your target organization using methods and techniques described in Module 2 of Certified Ethical Hacker Version 11. Collect all the public information from your efforts.
Passive Footprinting of Target Organization- Techniques and Methods for Reconnaissance
Write a 1- to 2-page report summarizing the footprinting information you collected.
Summarize, briefly, the importance of footprinting in the ethical hacking process and how it will be used in penetration testing.
Examine the organization, network, and system information you collected. Describe the results of your examination.
Explain the security posture of the organization. Identify any security vulnerabilities you detected.