All Major Public Hacks: Footprinting
Want to Know How and Where All Major Data Breaches Begin? With all of the publicity major corporate data breaches receive, we often get caught up in the outcomes. What happened, how many people were impacted and in what ways, who was responsible, etc. In the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, personal data about employees and corporate IP was released to the public. In the Target hack, hackers made money selling the magstripe data of the victim’s credit cards on the black market. Media has traditionally placed emphasis on the victims of these attacks. However, equally as fascinating, is the how or why they occurred in the first place. What’s likely the most alarming aspect of these attacks, is that the data breach almost always occurs through the fault of someone internally within the organization. All hacks or data breaches begin in the same place: with a process called Footprinting. This is, essentially, building a profile of a target in order to design the exploitation. In th...