passive reconnaissance
(pas´iv ri-kon´&-zents) (n.) The process of collecting information about an intended target of a malicious hack without the target knowing what is occurring. Typical passive reconnaissance can include physical observation of an enterprise’s building, sorting through discarded computer equipment in an attempt to find equipment that contains data or discarded paper with usernames and passwords, eavesdropping on employee conversations, researching the target through common Internet tools such as Whois, impersonating an employee in an attempt to collect information, and packet sniffing.
Compare with active reconnaissance.
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(n.) A secret series of characters that enables a user to access a file, computer, or program. On multi-user systems, each user must enter his or her password before the computer will respond to commands. The password helps ensure that unauthorized users do not access the computer. In addition, data files and programs may require […]
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The process of attempting to guess or crack passwords to gain access to a computer system or network. Crackers will generally use a variety of tools, scripts, or software to crack a system password. The goal of the cracker is to ideally obtain the password for root (UNIX) or system and administrator (Windows, NT). Password […]
- patch
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